Today, our friends at Kopo Kopo, a Kenyan-based global mobile money payments acceptance, SME loan and business intelligence firm announced a big milestone, showing mobile money payments are here to stay, and even take over cards and NFC combined.
Kopo Kopo said it processed its 1,000,000th payment via Lipa na M-PESA last week after its first ever Lipa na M-PESA payment on March 28th, 2012.
“We’re lucky to have identified a solution to a real and significant market failure. It’s been an incredible journey so far, but we’re just getting started,” Ben Lyon, Kopo Kopo Director told TechMoran, adding that the firm has experienced twenty-seven consecutive months of growth and now service roughly 15,000 SMEs throughout Kenya.
With 1,000,000+ payments, this is a good start for Kopo Kopo and just the beginning of its mission to change the ways SMEs manage their businesses in emerging markets.
In May, Kopo Kopo launched Grow With Us, terming it as the fastest way to get cash to local SMEs to help them grow fast and avoid the processes and collateral required. The firm has been moving to serve merchants not just the East Africa market but the world and in March said it had began working with international partners such as telcos to help them with their mobeil payment strategies, integrate their mobile money systems for merchants and also help power retailers to accept mobile money payments.
Last year, Kopo Kopo raised $2.6 million in Series A financing from Javelin Venture Partners to fule its growth.