Bloc Acquires Payments Company Orchestrate
The Nigerian full-service fintech and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) infrastructure provider helps company offer fintech solutions to their customers via an exhaustive set of building blocks – infrastructure, licenses, compliance, and capital – that allows them to increase their value to their stakeholders, be they customers, investors
Bloc has announced its acquisition of Getwallets, the wallets-as-a-service provider that has now recently pivoted to become payments orchestration company Orchestrate.
Orchestrate considers itself the fastest way to add new payment methods to fintech products, expand into new markets and provide multiple payment options to customers in Africa – all with little to no code. The startup was also launched in 2021.
According to Bloc, the strategic acquisition of Orchestrate will enable it focus its core product strategy on delivering seamless BaaS and banking services while Orchestrate leads its fintech infrastructure with its proprietary payments orchestration API. The acquisition is a combined cash and equities deal, with Orchestrate remaining a standalone entity led by founder and CEO Jerry Enebeli.
Bloc revealed that it has processed more than US$30 million in the past year through its bill payments API alone, and recently launched its SuperAgency tool, which allows licensed companies to offer agency banking services. Its acquisition of Orchestrate boosts its capacity to offer fintech infrastructure such as online payments, subscription management, BNPL payment infrastructure, virtual wallets, bill payments and invoicing in its Fintech-as-a-Service suite of APIs.
Edmund Olotu, founder of Bloc stated: “We are proud of our input in helping shape the African fintech space and excited to welcome the Orchestrate team into the Bloc family. Part of our vision has always been to empower businesses of all sizes to offer seamless payment solutions to their customers, which is essential not just to the experience of the end user but also to the sector’s growth.”
“Jerry and his team have built an incredible platform that is a great fit with what we were looking to add to our suite of services so it made sense to acquire their proven expertise rather than building our own platform from scratch. This is an exciting evolution for both businesses as we look to grow and build even more solutions that ultimately supports the growth of African tech businesses in the coming years,’’ Olotu added.