Thepeer, a Nigeria-based API startup that raised a $2.1 million seed spherical in June 2022, has shuttered its enterprise and can return its remaining capital to traders after failing to scale, the corporate stated in a statement on Monday.
The three-year-old startup stated it closed store after realising its distinctive know-how alone wasn’t enough. “Our distinctive service had its challenges, the primary being compliance points. Moreover, the general acceptance of wallets as a viable cost choice didn’t develop as quickly as we had hoped,” it stated.
Thepeer used its APIs to supply another community the place fintechs and companies can embed completely different units of merchandise into their functions and web sites for simple cash motion by their prospects. It hoped to attach wallets throughout over 400 fintechs throughout the continent to allow funds.
Thepeer is the second startup to return remaining capital to traders in 2024 after Cova, a wealthtech startup, closed down in like method, demonstrating the challenges in constructing fintech companies on the continent.
Launched in April 2021 by co-founders Kosisochukwu Chike Ononye and Michael “Trojan” Okoh, the enterprise hoped to energy infrastructure for primarily fintech companies, from small to medium-sized. In line with Crunchbase, it raised a pre-seed spherical of $220,000 from traders together with Ezra Olubi, Paystack Co-founder, and Prosper Otemuyiwa, Edenlife CTO.
A 12 months later, it raised a $2.1 million seed spherical led by the Raba Partnership. Different traders included RaliCap, Timon Capital, BYLD Ventures, Musha Ventures, Sunu, and Uncovered Fund.
In 2022, the startup claimed its month-to-month transaction quantity had reached millions in dollars, with a mean month-on-month (MoM) transaction progress of 161%. The corporate additionally had plans to increase to different African nations, together with Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt. Thepeer has now admitted that regardless of all that progress; it did not align its product with the market’s wants.
To realign and deal with what issues, each founders have determined to position the product in upkeep mode for the interim. “We’ll work to take care of the platform for so long as doable till we uncover a brand new house for it,” the assertion added.