Airtel Africa's mobile money business has received its third big investment of the year, scooping up $200 million from an affiliate of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund.
Qatar Holding is making the investment in Airtel Mobile Commerce (AMC), the holding company for several of Airtel Africa’s mobile money operations, at a $2.65 billion valuation.
In March, the Rise Fund, the impact investing arm of TPG, invested $200 million at the same valuation. Weeks later, Mastercard put $100 million into the business.
AMC is working to own and operate the mobile money businesses across all of Airtel Africa’s 14 operating countries, targeting the large unbanked market with services including mobile wallet deposit and withdrawals, merchant and commercial payments, benefits transfers, loans and savings, virtual credit card and international money transfers.
It currently works with a bank partner in Nigeria but has applied for its own mobile banking licence.
The firm claims more than 20 million users across the continent and reported revenues of $124 million for the most recent quarter, with underlying Ebitda of $60 million.
Mansoor bin Ebrahim Al-Mahmoud, CEO, QIA, says: "We are delighted to build on our support of Airtel Africa in promoting financial inclusion to the large and growing population of Sub-Saharan Africa.
"Airtel Money plays a critical role in facilitating economic activity, including for customers without access to traditional financial services. We firmly believe in its mission to expand these efforts over the coming years."