Afrobility: Africa Tech and Business #62: DPO Group - How the FinTech payments platform went from bootstrapping for 8+ years to strategically acquiring multiple companies, and exiting to Network International for $288M
Overview: Today, we’re going to talk about DPO Group. We’ll explore the story across the following areas
- African payments context
- DPO group’s early history
- Product & monetization strategy
- Competitive positioning & potential exit options
- overall outlook.
This episode was recorded on Mar 5, 2023
Companies discussed: DPO Group, Network International, Apis partners, Flutterwave, Paystack, Interswitch, Safaricom, MTN, Airtel, Takealot.com, Superbalist.com, Safaricom, Yoco, PayPal & Chipper Cash
Business concepts discussed: Bootstrapping, Payments ecosystem, payments partnerships strategy, payments infrastructure, low-end disruption, banking regulation, Mobile Money, E-commerce payments, Virtual cards & payments M&A strategy
Conversation highlights:
- (04:40) - Africa Payment Context at time of DPO’s founding
- (12:46) - DPO Group Founding and early history
- (14:05) - Founder Background
- (25:57) - Fundraising and Growth
- (29:48) - Acquisitions and Partnerships
- (51:30) - Product and Monetization Strategy
- (1:00:05) - Competition
- (1:08:35) - DPO’s exit to Network International
- (1:27:15) - Bankole’s overall thoughts and outlook
- (1:39:10) - Olumide’s overall thoughts and outlook
- (1:47:01) - Recommendations and small wins
Olumide’s recommendations & small wins:
- Recommendation: The War of Art: Book for creators and artists to get over the hump and release their inner creative expression to the world
- Recommendation: Naval Ravikant podcast with David Deutsch talking about Physics. Amazing episode. Having two of them together is incredible. Like having a rap collabo.
- Recommendation: Fela in Versace. Shit is too nice. I love songs that combine unrelated ideas
- Small win: Soul Cycle for the First time. Dope shit.
Bankole’s recommendations & small wins:
- Recommendation: Stratechery Podcast - Eric Seufert and Ben Thompson & Mike Munger on EconTalk on Decision-making
- Small win: I signed up for a gym membership for the first time ever
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