Helios takes a shine to TPAY with majority stake
Helios Investment Partners has acquired a 76% stake in TPAY Mobile, a direct carrier billing provider in the Middle East and North Africa region from A15, a tech investment fund based in Egypt.
It wasn’t total enlightenment as terms of the transaction were not disclosed. A15 and senior management will remain minority shareholders.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed
Babatunde Soyoye, co-founder and managing partner of Helios Investment Partners, says: “A15 and TPAY management have built an outstanding mobile payments platform that is profitable and still has a lot of room for growth in Africa and beyond given its applicability to a wide range of payment types and ease of use.”
With offices in Cairo and the UAE, TPAY currently operates across 16 countries with almost half of its total transaction volume coming from African markets such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
TPAY uses a mobile network operator (MNO) billing relationship and collection network, it enables consumers to purchase digital goods using their pre-paid airtime balance or post-paid phone bills.
It has more than 33 MNO connections and Helios is keen to tap into a growing market under the banner of “financial inclusion”. Since its launch, TPAY has processed 622 million transactions.
