Swipe, Nigerian Fintech Startup Secures $500k Pre-seed for Expansion

Pre-seed funding of US$500,000 has been secured by Nigerian fintech company Swipe this year as it seeks to increase access to its numerous credit offerings.

Swipe, a credit-focused software startup founded in 2020, supports businesses in Africa by offering credit solutions that permit company growth and expansion through credit purchasing.

Its goal is to increase the use of credit cards by working with employers to promote the Cards as a Service (CAAS) product and to enable flexible payments at checkout counters across Africa using the BNPL product.

“While our CAAS model onboards organizations and businesses as partners to assist with the management, funding, and tracking of field expenditures incurred by employees using Swipe Cards, our BNPL approach onboards merchants into our platform and enables customers to buy now and pay later using a Swipe Card. Employees are given flexible access to up to 50% of their earned compensation under the CAAS model, according to Temidayo Dauda, CEO of Swipe, in an interview with Disrupt Africa.

“With the Nigerian economy in mind, we discovered that Nigerians require more adaptable methods of paying for goods and services. To meet their requirements, people had to wait until payday or borrow money from friends. We became aware of this and made the decision to create a way to assist our target consumers in meeting their immediate needs while deferring payment for a predetermined period of time.

Swipe and Flutterwave joined together in 2020 to offer users card services. However, because customers couldn’t make purchases on platforms that didn’t support Flutterwave’s Rave, the company was forced to switch to a more flexible card provider.

Swipe was able to start implementing MasterCard services in December 2021, giving users easier access to a large number of merchants.

The firm has partnered with Interswitch and Providus MasterCard, as well as acquired US$500,000 in pre-seed capital this year to aid in its growth. With certain leading e-commerce companies, Dauda claimed it was in the midst of finalizing new arrangements. Everything here is meant to increase adoption and open up new markets.

According to Dauda, “We think that this trajectory will promote credit card use beyond individual users and enhance the general view of credit transactions across the nation.

“We have an objective of shipping this solution across Africa soon, but at the moment, we’re first building confidence in the use of our BNPL and CAAS products across Nigeria.”