Nigerian fintech startup collapses after raising $2.1m

Nigerian fintech startup Thepeer is closing down its operations nearly two years after raising $2.1 million in a Seed round.

According to the founders, in a statement on their official website, compliance issues hindered them from launching key wallet providers.

The Chief Executive Officer, Chike Ononye and Chief Technical Officer, Michael Okoh also blamed the slow acceptance of wallets as a viable payment option, hence, causing the diversifying resources into enlightenment.

They said: “Faced with these challenges, we needed to make a key decision either to do a hard pivot, an M&A or return capital to investors.

"After carefully weighing our options, we decided that returning the remaining capital to investors was the best decision.

“We could not align our product with the market's needs at our current size and scale. What does this mean for our customers? Thepeer will be placed on maintenance mode for the interim.

"We'll work to maintain the platform for as long as possible until we discover a new home for it.”

Tech website, TechCabal disclosed that the startup that facilitates easy money transfers between organizations raised a $2.1 million seed round in 2021.

Thepeer is an API-based startup that helps its clients—mostly fintechs and SMEs to enable their own clients to fund their accounts from other companies, transfer money across their various wallets, and easily pay for goods from their wallets.

Some users of the fintech company have revealed that they are yet to receive or withdraw the money they have kept with the company for the past month.

BEB