Once‑Beloved Fintech Brass Absorbed Into Paystack MFB After Two-Year Rescue Bid
Two years after a high‑profile rescue by a Paystack‑led consortium, Nigerian business banking startup Brass has ceased operating as an independent entity, with its operations now absorbed into Paystack Microfinance Bank in a move that closes the chapter on the once high-flying fintech as a standalone entity.
Founded in July 2020 by Sola Akindolu and Emmanuel Okeke , who met while working at Kudi and Paystack respectively, Brass raised a USD 1.7 M round in October 2021 that drew backing from Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola and Paystack co‑founder Ezra Olubi. The startup built a digital banking platform that offered business accounts, payroll tools, expense management and cash‑flow tracking, positioning itself as a modern banking layer for African SMEs.
But by October 2023, cracks began to show. Customers reported delays in processing withdrawals, sparking liquidity concerns across the ecosystem. In March 2024, Brass furloughed an unspecified number of its roughly 50 employees, with Akindolu citing “significant economic shifts” in a public statement. The delays continued for months, and ecosystem stakeholders worried that the collapse of a deposit‑taking fintech could trigger a wider bank run on digital financial services.
In May 2024, a consortium led by Paystack, with participation from PiggyVest, Ventures Platform, P1 Ventures and angel investors, acquired Brass for an undisclosed amount, replacing Akindolu and his founding team with new leadership. The acquisition ended months of speculation, though some investors raised questions about liabilities, with two sources describing a NGN 2 B (~USD 1.4 M) hole in the company’s balance sheet that Brass’s leadership could not account for.
On Monday, Brass announced that interested customers would be migrated into Paystack MFB before July 31, 2026, integrating its business banking operations into Paystack’s regulated banking infrastructure. “As we rebuilt and as our platform became more mature, something became increasingly clear: the next phase of our growth could not be achieved alone,” the company said.
Paystack, which was acquired by Stripe in 2020 for USD 200 million, absorbs Brass to deepen its expansion from payments processing into full‑stack financial services; a shift that began in January when it entered Nigeria’s banking sector by acquiring Ladder Microfinance Bank.
The integration also signals the maturity of Africa’s fintech market. After years of venture‑backed startups building overlapping products, consolidation is now accelerating as capital and regulation tightens.
