Thepeer, a Nigeria-based API startup that raised a $2.1 million seed spherical in June 2022, has shuttered its enterprise and can return its remaining capital to buyers after failing to scale, the corporate stated in a assertion on Monday.
The three-year-old startup stated it closed store after realising its distinctive expertise alone wasn’t ample. “Our distinctive service had its challenges, the primary being compliance points. Moreover, the general acceptance of wallets as a viable fee choice didn’t develop as quickly as we had hoped,” it stated.
Thepeer used its APIs to offer another community the place fintechs and companies can embed totally different units of merchandise into their purposes and web sites for simple cash motion by their clients. It hoped to attach wallets throughout over 400 fintechs throughout the continent to allow funds.
Thepeer is the second startup to return remaining capital to buyers in 2024 after Cova, a wealthtech startup, closed down in like method, demonstrating the challenges in constructing fintech companies on the continent.
Launched in April 2021 by co-founders Kosisochukwu Chike Ononye and Michael “Trojan” Okoh, the enterprise hoped to energy infrastructure for primarily fintech companies, from small to medium-sized. In keeping with Crunchbase, it raised a pre-seed spherical of $220,000 from buyers together with Ezra Olubi, Paystack Co-founder, and Prosper Otemuyiwa, Edenlife CTO.
A yr later, it raised a $2.1 million seed spherical led by the Raba Partnership. Different buyers included RaliCap, Timon Capital, BYLD Ventures, Musha Ventures, Sunu, and Uncovered Fund.
In 2022, the startup claimed its month-to-month transaction quantity had reached tens of millions in {dollars}, with a median month-on-month (MoM) transaction development of 161%. The corporate additionally had plans to develop to different African international locations, together with Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt. Thepeer has now admitted that regardless of all that development; it did not align its product with the market’s wants.
To realign and deal with what issues, each founders have determined to put the product in upkeep mode for the interim. “We’ll work to take care of the platform for so long as attainable till we uncover a brand new house for it,” the assertion added.
