My friend is an exceptionally talented techie. She has a mobile money product. She has proven the target addressable market [TAM]. There is a market within the TAM. As proof, her product has gained traction in three northern states. She has successfully onboarded several merchants in the north over the past two years. But she could not scale it. Shake it down. Sweat it up. Because she does not have the deep pockets of an MTN.
She got the attention of some investors. A few of the investors could not remove the beam from their eyes. They could not see the unicorn in the product. Some are thawing. Others are stalling. The failure of some earlier fintech start-ups is staring them in the eye. Ergo, she is in safe mode. Not her, but her mobile money product. The product is in a safe. She has locked it away. She has closed her office. Paid off her employees. Quietly. She is waiting for another time. To strike again. Or sell out.
On The One Hand
Similarly, Thepeer, a Nigeria-based API start-up that raised a $2.1 million seed round in June 2022, has closed shop. The investors would get what they had invested. The business could not scale. In a statement, the three-year-old start-up said it closed shop after realising its exceptional technology alone was insufficient. The firm had a compliance challenge. It could not accept wallets as a viable payment option. Therefore, it did not grow as rapidly as ‘we had hoped.’ The founders said.
On The Other Hand
According to Crunchbase, Thepeer had raised $2,320,000 from investors. One of the investors was a former Paystack staff member. Other investors were RaliCap. Timon Capital. BYLD Ventures. Musha Ventures. Sunu. Uncovered Fund.
In The Long Term
Thepeer used to provide an alternative network so that fintechs and businesses could embed different sets of products into their applications and websites for customers to move funds easily. The company had hoped to connect wallets across over 400 fintechs on the continent to enable payments.
Kosisochukwu Ononye and Michael “Trojan” Okoh co-founded Thepeer. The duo had hoped the business would power infrastructure for small-to-medium-sized fintech businesses. In 2022, its monthly transaction volume reached millions of dollars. It had an average month-on-month transaction growth of 161 per cent. It was going to expand to Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt. Overall, its hopes and growth did not align with the market’s needs.
Consequently, like my friend, Thepeer founders had placed the product in maintenance mode in the interim. They will work to maintain the platform for as long as possible until they discover a ‘new home for it.”
In The Short Term
Thepeer was the second start-up to return funds to investors in 2024. Cova was the first. Cova was a health tech start-up. Cova collapsed. Can you see what it takes to build fintech businesses on the continent? Like other struggling fintech founders, my friend wears her scar like a badge.
Fun Fact
The most common reason small businesses fail is that the market does not need their products or services. 48 per cent of businesses in 2025 failed because they ran out of cash
