Direct Pay Online Group receives second investment of $5M from Apis

Direct Pay Online Group (DPO) has received a second investment of $5M from the UK based private equity fund, Apis Partners.

This investment, which follows the initial $10M investment made last year, will be used to fuel DPO Group’s ambitious strategic plan which includes organic growth across Africa, strengthening the Group’s position through mergers and acquisitions, integrating the systems of all companies under the group, developing the new payments technology and the DumaPay app.

“The additional capital from Apis is a sign of the confidence that our partners have in us, and is a positive reinforcement of the good work we are doing with the business,” said DPO Group Chairman, Offer Gat. “DPO Group has achieved and exceeded the plans laid out in the first phase of the strategic plan. We have established a presence in 12 African countries namely Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Mauritius. We further plan to set up operations in Nigeria, Ghana, DRC and Mozambique by the end of 2017.”

According to the plan, DPO Group has also finalized the acquisition of five companies – Pay Gate and VCS in South Africa, VCS in Namibia and Botswana, and PayThru in South Africa, and are in the final stages of acquiring an additional company which will be announced later this year.

The Group has further completed the first phase of integration between DPO and PayGate’s systems, and rolled out a new version of its next generation payments application, DumaPay, which is the first mobile application  in Africa that supports multiple payment options.

Direct Pay Online Group CEO, Eran Feinstein said: “2017 has been an extremely successful year for us and we are very proud of the strides we have made towards the achievement of our goals. This most recent capital injection will help to further the Group’s strategic plans in the region which will include the establishment of up to 26 branches across Africa, the acquisition of at least one additional company, and the continuation of our technological distribution across Africa.”

Apis Partners is a private equity asset manager that supports growth-stage financial services businesses in Africa and Asia by providing them catalytic growth equity capital.

Commenting on the investment, Apis Partners said: “We first invested in the DPO Group because we believed that they are a well-managed business providing quality financial services to African consumers. The Group has exceeded our expectations with the gains that they made in the last year and we believe that our additional investment will push DPO further in establishing itself as the leading payments processor in Africa.”