Airtel Africa Receives $100 Million Investment Interest from Mastercard

After raising $200 million from TPG’s Rise Fund two weeks ago, Airtel Mobile Commerce BV (AMC BV), the mobile money business of Airtel Africa, announced that another interested global payment facilitator Mastercard Inc will invest $100 million in the telecommunication giant at $2.65 billion valuation.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange-listed company said on Thursday.

According to the statement, MasterCard will hold a minority stake like the Rise Fund in Airtel Mobile Commerce in accordance with Airtel Africa’s monetisation strategy for the mobile money business by selling up to a 25 percent stake in the company.

In a joint statement, Airtel Africa and Mastercard said they have “extended commercial agreements and signed a new commercial framework which will deepen their partnerships across numerous geographies and areas including card issuance, payment gateway, payment processing, merchant acceptance and remittance solutions, amongst others.”

“With today’s announcement, we are pleased to welcome Mastercard as an investor in our mobile money business, joining The Rise Fund, which we announced two weeks ago,” CEO of Airtel Africa, Raghunath Mandava said of the investment.

“This is a continuation of our strategy to increase the minority shareholding in our mobile money business with the further intention to list this business within four years. We are significantly strengthening our existing strategic relationship with Mastercard to help us realise the full potential from the substantial opportunity to improve financial inclusion across our countries of operation.”