Comviva sells stake in TerraPay to Prime Ventures, Partech Partners and IFC

Mobility solutions provider Comviva on Tuesday said it has sold its shares in fintech company TerraPay to a consortium of Prime Ventures, Partech Partners and IFC.

The company has, however, not disclosed the value of the deal.

Prime Ventures and Partech Partners are co-investing in TerraPay, along with International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, a firm said.

"Apart from acquiring Comviva shares, the investors have further invested USD 9.6 million in TerraPay to fund the company's expansion," it added.

TerraPay, incubated by Comviva in 2015, provides payment infrastructure services by enabling payment service providers such as banks, mobile money operators, money transfer operators or other payment providers to instantly connect to each other at a low cost.

Since 2015, TerraPay has acquired more than 25 licences to operate in over 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe and is expanding globally.

Manoranjan Mohapatra, Chief Executive Officer of Comviva said the evolving regulatory framework constrained the growth of TerraPay and made it imperative to step out of Comviva fold.

"We have taken a strategic decision to divest TerraPay business and are confident that this change is in the best interest of all the stakeholders. We shall continue to take such strategic initiatives and leverage our start-up factory for fuelling future growth, he added.

The new consortium of investors in TerraPay will enable the company to execute its strategy to scale operations as a hub enabling interoperable, real-time, cross-border transactions between telecom and mobile money operators, the statement said.

This will help TerraPay scale its payment infrastructure services to clear and settle international payments faster, enable instant payments across operators' interoperable networks, as well as remove a significant barrier for transfers to mobile money accounts, it added.

By enabling the electronic low-cost transfer of funds, the project will garner a greater share of formal remittance payments, as per the statement.

We believe in our mission to address financial inclusion by making real time national, regional and global payments accessible to everyone," Ambar Sur, founder and Chief Executive Officer of TerraPay, said.

Paulo de Bolle, IFC's Global Director, Financial Institutions Group, said by adding TerraPay to IFC's growing fintech investment portfolio, it is supporting the company to grow and expand, while helping to lower the costs and streamline the process to send money home.

Fintechs like TerraPay play a vital role in increasing financial inclusion in emerging markets, he added.

TerraPay has been advised by the FinTech M&A team of specialised investment bank Kempen & Co and Van Doorne, a law firm based in The Netherlands.