OnePipe, a Nigerian fintech, has raised $3.5 million in a seed round to fund the company expansion

OnePipe, a Nigerian fintech, has raised $3.5 million in a seed round to fund the company's expansion

Seed funding has been raised for OnePipe, a platform for developing API infrastructure. The company has raised $3.5 million in total. This announcement comes nearly a year after the company raised $950,000 in pre-seed funding from a variety of investors.

The seed round was led by Atlantica Ventures, Tribe Capital, and V&R associates, among others. Canaan Partners, Saison Capital, Norrsken, The Fund, and Two Culture Capital also participated in the round as co-lead investors. The company also received contributions from Chris Adelsbach, Techstars, Ingressive Capital, Acquity, P1, Raba, and DFS Lab, in addition to a small number of angel investors.

OnePipe is an API platform that focuses on the finance industry. Embedded finance is a method of distributing financial services to businesses and brands that are not traditionally associated with the financial sector. Besides that, it enables businesses to provide a more diverse range of customer offerings and experiences to their customers. 

Aniko Szigetvari, a founding partner of Atlantica Ventures, stated that he believes OnePipe has the potential to increase the loyalty and revenue of financial institutions.

OnePipe was founded by Ope Adeoye in 2018. Due to a decrease in demand, the company's initial focus was on operating as an API platform for open banking, but it has since shifted its focus to embedded finance. It began working with the seed-stage accelerator Techstars in July 2020 and has made significant strides since joining the organization.

As a partner to banks and non-financial institutions, OnePipe assists them in the launch and management of financial services such as credit cards, accounts, and payments. As part of the company's mission to assist in the distribution of digital services, this is a natural fit.

OnePipe makes money by taking a cut of all transactions that take place on these accounts, which it then shares with its partner banks to generate revenue. If a loan is made through OnePipe's APIs, the company collects at least one percent of the loan interest from lending partners and distributes it to businesses and partner banks.

It claims to have processed more than 6.3 million transactions worth a total of more than $46.3 million in the first year of operation. As of today, the startup manages more than a million individual accounts as well as 138 businesses ranging from FMCG to retail to lending and agriculture.

Expansion

OnePipe is currently only available in Nigeria, but the company has plans to expand its reach worldwide. Sendy, a logistics and freight company based in Africa, has partnered with the startup to help it grow. As a result of this collaboration, OnePipe will be in charge of processing payments on Sendy. In order to accomplish this, the company plans to "assemble a Stripe-Shopify tag team."

According to Ope Adeoye, the CEO of OnePipe, this partnership will allow both companies to expand at the same time in the same market.