OPay, the Nigerian-rooted fintech backed by SoftBank's Vision Fund, is taking its most ambitious step yet — a public listing in the United States.
The company has retained Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank to lead the offering, according to sources familiar with the matter and first reported by Bloomberg. No target valuation or filing date has been announced, but analysts expect the IPO to price well above the $2 billion mark OPay achieved during its 2021 Series C round — a figure many believe has long been surpassed by the company's operational scale.
The appointment of JPMorgan and Citi, two of Wall Street's most prolific IPO underwriters, signals serious intent. For Deutsche Bank, the mandate builds on its growing footprint in cross-border technology transactions.
From Motorcycles to Mobile Money
OPay's story is one of sharp pivots and relentless execution. Founded in 2018 by Opera co-founder Yahui Zhou, the company entered Nigeria as a sprawling super app — branded motorcycles (ORide), tricycles (OTrike), food delivery, and logistics all operating under one green umbrella. That model hit a wall in 2020 when Lagos banned commercial motorcycles. Rather than double down on a dying strategy, OPay stripped back to its core and rebuilt around financial services. It deployed hundreds of thousands of point-of-sale terminals across Nigeria, creating a dense agent banking network that let millions of unbanked and underbanked Nigerians deposit, withdraw, and transfer money — no bank branch required.
The timing proved fortuitous. As Nigeria's Central Bank pushed its cashless policy agenda, OPay was already positioned to absorb the overflow of customers frustrated by chronic bank downtimes and steep transaction fees. Today, the company is a licensed Mobile Money Operator processing billions of dollars in monthly transactions across peer-to-peer transfers, bill payments, savings products, and micro-lending. As of 2024, its platform had over 30 million registered users and more than 500,000 active agents
. The Investor Stack Behind the AmbitionOPay's trajectory has always pointed toward a global exit. In August 2021, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a landmark $400 million funding round — its first major bet on an Africa-focused startup. Sequoia Capital China, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital, and Meituan round out a backer list that reads like a who's who of international tech capital.
A U.S. listing would give those investors the liquidity event they've been building toward, while giving OPay access to the deepest capital markets in the world. If it lands, it would rank among the most significant public debuts by any technology company operating across emerging markets in recent memory — and a defining moment for African fintech on the global stage.
