NIGERIA – Nigerian fintech startup, Maplerad has raised US$6 million in seed funding led by Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures.
The fund will enable the acquisition of more customers for Maplerad, enhance the process to get additional licenses and build its team, as well as deepen its reach across Africa.
Other investors were Golden Palm Investments Corporation, Michael Vaughn — ex-COO, Venmo, Fintech Fund, Babs Ogundeyi — CEO, Kuda, Armyn Capital, Dunbar Capital, Strawhat Investment, Polymath Capital, Unpopular Ventures, Sean Mahsoul and MyAsiaVC.
Founded by Miracle Anywanwu and Obinna Chukwujioke, Maplerad is a Banking-as-a-service platform just coming out of stealth.
While in stealth, Maplerad processed millions of dollars monthly for over 100 businesses acquired on its platform. These businesses included Pastel, Spleet, Bridgecard, Onboardly, Vella, Crowdforce, Dojah, and GetEquity, among other banks.
Speaking about the investment, James Fitzgerald, a partner at Valar Ventures, said that while the continent’s economies are maturing, “there’s a huge opportunity for Maplerad, which is the best-in-class banking as a service solution to provide businesses with the financial infrastructure to scale across Africa and globally quickly and seamlessly.”
Maplerad’s founders first launched WirePay in 2020, helping users make international payments by offering cross-border payment solutions in fiat and cryptocurrency.
Gradually the focus moved to a self-described all-in-one finance product enabling users receive, hold, and make payments in multiple currencies, create virtual and physical cards, and pay bills.
Wirepay raised undisclosed pre-seed funding last year from Golden Palm Investments Corporation, Greenhouse Capital, some Stash executives, and Berrywood Capital, including a US$125,000 check from OnDeck.
As Wirepay grew to over 50,000 users, mainly in Nigeria, the need for businesses to leverage the infrastructure powering Wirepay, its license coverages, and banking relationships grew; hence, Maplerad was created.
Anywanwu stated that as Wirepay grew to over 50,000 customers, primarily in Nigeria, businesses began to question about the in-house technology underpinning the services on its consumer app.
“People wanted to use the infrastructure powering Wirepay, our license coverages, and banking relationships,” the CEO and CTO stated.
Anywanwu further claimed that Maplerad (the parent firm) has always sought to sell this infrastructure to other companies.
However, after receiving a flood of outside demands, they agreed to beta-launch Maplerad, the infra product that lets enterprises to incorporate strong financial services such as accounts, payments, FX, and cards into their products.
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