Paystack’s Acquisition is Only Part of the Story: Lessons Learned from Gozem and Pick n Pay

(Originally published on Medium)

In the wake of the monumental news of Stripe’s acquisition of Paystack at $200 million, the largest startup acquisition to date from Nigeria and Stripe’s single largest acquisition, it is very easy to focus singularly on all the wins associated with this deal. And there are plenty of fantastic, necessary features to point out. The acquisition, coupled with several other recent fintech acquisitions in Africa, serves to hammer yet another nail in the narrative that African startups are not only ripe for investment, but that there are also active and high valued exits taking place. The maneuver also serves to strengthen Nigeria as a major player in the global tech ecosystem. One might even go the route of speculating on Paystack’s trajectory if Stripe had not acquired the Nigerian payments startup. Given that at the time of acquisition, Paystack’s customer reach of 60,000 represented only a small portion of the potential Nigerian customers, and an even smaller portion of potential customers in west Africa and beyond, it’s a reasonable guess that Paystack stood a strong possibility of expanding to become the “Stripe of Africa”, as per its motto.

But beyond all of these points of analyses, the Paystack success is one piece of a larger discussion to be had. Just days after the Stripe/Paystack announcement, west African “super-app” Gozem announced its acquisition of Togo-based delivery app Delivroum. Later that same day, southern Africa grocery store chain Pick n Pay announced its acquisition of Bottles, South Africa’s first dedicated alcohol delivery service. The two deals are both Africa-Africa acquisitions, each one representing different aspects of the African startup ecosystem and the successes available outside of the continent’s major players.

Read the full article on Medium here.