Float, the Ghanaian digital financing and cash management platform catering to small and medium-sized businesses, have acquired Accounteer, a Nigerian-owned total cloud-based accounting solution that lets users make invoices, keep track of expenses, manage assets, inventory, and more.
The mission of Float, which is to become the financial operating system for Africa’s small and medium-sized enterprises, inspired the company to make this acquisition. Eight months after Float secured one of Africa’s largest seed rounds, consisting of equity and debt seed capital totalling $17 million.
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Float, Ghanian Fintech
In the year 2020, Jesse Ghansah and Barima Effah established Swipe with the intention of providing companies with invoicing services.
However, in June of 2021, the firm rebranded to Float in order to begin offering loans to companies based on their receivables. In other words, it provides loans to businesses that are counting on being paid by their customers after providing a service but are in desperate need of cash to continue operating their company. Float was Ghansah’s approach to eventually finding a solution to the credit difficulty he encountered while operating OMG Digital, a media firm he launched in 2015 that Y Combinator financed.
Read: aYo Ghana CEO Assumes Pan-African Role To Accelerate Growth
Ghansah and Adjei’s business expanded in scope and offerings during the last two years. Float helps companies link and manage their bank accounts and digital wallets in one dashboard, automates bill payments to vendors and suppliers, and collects invoices, providing flexible credit lines to fill cash flow shortages. In addition to facilitating the creation of company accounts, generating payment linkages, and managing payment cards, it also assists users in managing their budgets.
The business has expanded its offerings to include revenue advances and prompt payments, and it is testing cross-border remittances in conjunction with other companies.
Float Joins Forces with Accounteer
As a company, Float aspires to serve as Africa’s “financial operating system” for SMEs, but it lacks a solution to the continent’s widespread problem of disorganized financial records. Large lenders have difficulty approving and giving loans to small businesses because they don’t have standardized financial procedures and records.
During a conversation Ghansah had with TechCabal, he explained that “most business owners are conflating their personal transactions with their business transactions,” “They don’t have proper accounting practices and proper bookkeeping practices in place. We wanted to fix this at scale.”
This purchase of Accounteer was driven by the need to provide a solution to this issue for their customers. Ghansah said that he has been keeping an eye on a few other accounting businesses ever since they [Float] saw the need for an accounting solution and was “particularly impressed by Accounteer’s trajectory over the years to become the cloud accounting software choice for 14,000+ SMBs in Nigeria and beyond”.
As the two companies grow into new areas, he is sure that adding Accounteer to Float’s ecosystem of products and services will be a game-changer.
What to Expect from this Combination
According to Ghansah, Accounteer has established itself as a viable company that can function independently while still owned by Float. “Float would provide credit while Accounteer bookkeeping and accounting; we look forward to an exciting future with the team,” he explained.
Even though Ghansah said that most of the Accounteer talent pool would be joining Float, Campsetyn, the CEO of Accounteer, who is currently helping to redesign and integrate both platforms, will not be joining Float full-time for the time being. Instead, he will serve as an advisor.
Accounteer, Nigerian Cloud-based Fintech Solution
Accounteer was established in 2015 by Merijn Campsteyn, and it gives users the ability to, among other things, generate invoices, keeps track of spending, and record payments. The startup, backed by venture capital, makes accounting software that lets businesses keep running even when they aren’t connected to the internet.
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The accomplishments and milestones that Accounteer has reached over the years include being the cloud accounting software of choice for over 14,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Nigeria and beyond.
Accounteer has received funding from Microtraction, Ventures Platform, and MEST where it won the MEST Africa Challenge in June 2018 and received $50,000 in funding. Additionally, the platform was a part of the Itanna accelerator program held in Lagos.
Observations
Float is now live in Nigeria and Ghana, and it will launch in Kenya before the end of the third quarter.
In the course of this year, we have seen a lot of acquisition agreements being conducted all across the continent by both international and regional startups. Bloc Acquired Orchestrate to Improve Payment Services; Appetito, Egyptian Q-Commerce Acquired Lamma for Speculated $10M+; Helios Towers Plc Acquired Airtel Africa’s Malawi Tower for approximately $55 million; Egypt’s eCommerce startup Homzmart Acquired German MockUp Studio; and TradeDepot Acquired Green Lion as Part of its Expansion Strategy in Ghana.
