PayPal's co-founder leads $6 million seed round for Nigerian start-up, Maplerad

Miracle Anyanwu, the co-founder at Maplerad, confirmed that the Banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, has secured the funding recently. Maplerad’s co-founders Anyanwu and Obinna Chukwujioke launched their first product, Wirepay, in 2020.

With the difficulties faced by private and business users when making international payments in Nigeria, Wirepay was introduced as a free mobile app that offered cross-border solutions in both local and foreign currencies.

Wirepay has now morphed into an all-in-one finance product that enables users to create virtual and physical cards, receive, hold and make payments in local and foreign currencies, and also pay bills.

So far, over 100 million businesses have used Maplerad’s systems as the company has so far, processed millions of dollars monthly.

These include other startups such as Pastel, Spleet, Bridgecard, Onboardly, Vella, Crowdforce, Dojah, GetEquity and a few banks. 

With the fresh investment, Maplerad hopes to acquire more customers, procure additional licences, build its team and strengthen its presence across Africa. This investment is Peter Thiel’s VC firm’s third African investment after it set its sights on Kuda (2021) and Yellow Card (2022).

Other investors who joined Valar Ventures in the round include 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.