Portfolio: Irofit Raises $11.4 Million to Expand Payments Beyond $500 Million

Irofit, the Finnish parent of the ZirooPay mobile payment platform, raised $11.4 million in Series A funding to accelerate the rollout of its internet-free card readers across Nigeria and beyond as well as expand into new payment channels.

The round was led by Lagos -based Zrosk Investment Management, which also backs Africa’s largest independent carmaker Nord. Fedha Capital and Exotix Advisory also participated as well as existing shareholders, including Inventure and Revalence Ventures.

“Digital payments still account for less than 5 percent of the retail activity in Nigeria and across Africa,” said Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Omoniyi Olawale. “With the unrelenting optimism of our customers, and support of our investors, we know it’s going to be a wonderful adventure of compounding impact.”

ZirooPay is a mobile card reader that functions in areas where there is no broadband coverage, delivering a 95 percent transaction success rate compared with between 25 and 50 percent for other providers. Having previously raised $2,6 million, Irofit already serves more than 15,000 merchants in Nigeria and has processed over $500 million in transactions.

The ZirooPay platform also allows small businesses across retail, agency banking, hospitality and services sectors to perform digital business tasks, such as tracking sales and managing operations. With the new funding, Irofit is looking to expand the ZirooPay platform into a broader omnichannel system for merchants.

Irofit has a “patented technology advantage and distribution model that significantly increases the odds of digitizing the offline economy at a unit cost that makes the story particularly compelling,” said Samson Esemuede, managing director and chief investment officer of Zrosk.

Irofit has offices in Helsinki and Lagos.