Nigeria’s Paga Buys Software Firm Apposit For Global Expansion

Nigerian digital payments startup Paga is expanding its operations with the acquisition of Apposit, a software development startup based in Ethiopia, as reported on Wednesday (Jan. 22).

Paga’s CEO and Founder Tayo Oviosu told the news outlet that the Apposit acquisition comes amid the company’s plans to expand into Mexico. The amount paid for the acquisition was not disclosed.

Speaking at Disrupt San Francisco, Oviosu announced Paga’s plans to expand globally.

“Paga will leverage Apposit – which is U.S. incorporated but operates in Addis Ababa – to support that expansion into East Africa and Latin America,” the article indicated.

Paga and Apposit were launched by “repatriate entrepreneurs.” Oviosu studied at Stanford University for his MBA and came back to Nigeria after a stint at Cisco Systems.

Oviosu said Big Tech players like PayPal and Alipay are competitors as Paga moves into more emerging markets.

Apposit CEO Adam Abate returned to Ethiopia 17 years ago. He started working in FinTech after attending Brown University.

“I put together a team … to build … public financial management systems for the country. And during the process … brought in my best friend Eric Chijioke … to be a technical engineer,” said Abate.

According to the article, “The two teamed up with Simon Solomon in 2007 to co-found Apposit, with a focus on building large-scale enterprise software for Africa.”

“We aligned ourselves as African entrepreneurs … which then developed into a close relationship where we became … investors in Paga and strategically aligned,” said Abate.

That launched a digital finance innovation in Africa, leading to the Paga partnership with Apposit in 2010.

Apposit has since expanded to 63 engineers and technicians. The company also helped digitize the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange.

In 2018, Paga closed a $10 million funding deal as it prepared to expand into other countries. The company released its payments product in Ethiopia, Mexico and the Philippines to compete with heavy hitters such as PayPal, Alipay and Safaricom’s M-Pesa.