M-KOPA, the solar system financing firm turned-asset financing platform has officially launched in Nigeria with plans to lend millions of smartphones, solar lighting, energy-efficient televisions, fridges and digital financial services via its financing platform.

The launch was announced after the firm surpassed 20,000 devices in Lagos and Oyo in pilot sales in partnership with  Airtel and Samsung. 

In a statement, Mayur Patel, M-KOPA’s Chief Commercial Officer, said, “Nigeria is an exciting market for M-KOPA to be expanding into. It presents an opportunity for us to bring the power of our financing platform to serve more underbanked customers, who otherwise would not readily have access to smartphone devices. Additionally, through our strategic partnerships and end-to-end solution, we are best positioned to address mobile operators’ key challenge to convert consumers from 2G/3G networks to 4G.

M-KOPA Nigeria will be led by former SafeBoda Nigeria country manager Babajide Duroshola. As the new General Manager of M-KOPA, Babajide will drive the company’s broader expansion strategy, hiring, expanding partnerships and scaling operations across the country.

At SafeBoda Nigeria, Babajide was responsible for the overall business as Country Director. His career before SafeBoda included Community Manager, Technical Talent at Andela.

Founded in 2011, M-KOPA pioneered and kick-started the wider pay-as-you-go solar market in Kenya. In 2019, M-KOPA launched smartphone financing and has since expanded to one of the world’s most advanced connected asset financing platforms. To date, the company has provided over $400 million in financing that has enabled over 1 million customers to access their products and services, and sold over 1 million PAYG solar systems and 500,000 smartphones to customers in Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.

M-KOPA is looking to expand its talent pool and is currently recruiting for a number of roles including Android Developers, Back-end Engineers and Data Scientists.