Nigerian e-commerce startup OmniRetail has acquired Traction Apps, a fintech company, for an undisclosed fee. This acquisition will enhance financial services and trade solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
OmniRetail, launched in 2019, addresses challenges faced by SMEs in the FMCG space. They introduced OmniPay in 2022, a seamless payments platform that integrates with 13 financial service providers, enabling smooth collections and supplier payments. OmniPay uses transaction data to build creditworthiness scores, empowering underserved retailers with the capital needed for growth.
Founded by ex-McKinsey consultants Mayowa Alli and Dolapo Adejuyigbe, Traction Apps built payment tools for small businesses in Nigeria, reaching over 100,000 merchants in nearly four years. Their services complement OmniPay’s existing offerings, creating a holistic solution for SMEs in the FMCG space.
The acquisition will allow Omni to integrate Traction’s merchant POS services into OmniPay’s existing ecosystem, creating an enhanced retail financial platform.
The combined entity will process over ₦2 trillion and facilitate loans worth ₦200 billion annually, servicing 180,000 customers across wholesale and retail sectors. As Mayowa Alli, co-founder at Traction, noted, “This integration will allow us to scale our solutions and accelerate our vision of simplifying payments at the retail level. OmniRetail’s ecosystem will enable us to bring our innovative solutions to a wider audience, benefiting even more small businesses across Nigeria and beyond.”
This acquisition is a significant step forward in building more comprehensive offerings for African SMEs, according to Dotun Olowoporoku, partner at Venture Platform. With this merger, OmniRetail solidifies its position as a leader in the FMCG space, enhancing financial services and trade solutions for SMEs.
Dotun Olowoporoku, Managing Partner at Ventures Platform, which was involved in both startups’ journeys, emphasized that this acquisition is part of a broader strategy to build more robust solutions for African SMEs. Ventures Platform sees this merger as an opportunity to leverage the strengths of both OmniRetail and Traction to create a more comprehensive and impactful offering for small businesses across the continent.