OPay’s Valuation Tops USD 3 B With IPO In View, Early Backer Suggests

The Norwegian browser group, Opera, which incubated OPay, has raised the implied valuation of the Nigerian fintech heavyweight to about USD 3.1 B, according to a securities filing, and assigned an 85% probability to an initial public offering within the next two years.

The filing shows Opera valued its 9.5% stake in the digital payments platform at USD 294.6 M at the end of 2025, implying a total valuation for OPay of roughly USD 3.1 B. That marks a significant increase from the USD 2.7 B implied by the 2024 carrying value of USD 258.3 M, and a more than 50% rise from OPay’s USD 2 B valuation following a USD 400 M Series C round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 in 2021.

Opera’s internal model assumes a liquidity event will occur within nine months to two years and applies a discount rate of 18.5% plus a 10% discount for lack of marketability. The company weighted an IPO at 85%, a trade sale at 10%, dissolution at 2.5% and redemption at 2.5%. Opera cautioned that the 85% figure is a valuation input, not a market forecast.

“The fair value of the OPay investment is highly uncertain and may result in material volatility in our results of operations,” the company said in the filing. 

OPay, which began inside Opera in 2018 as a super app offering services that included e-hailing and food delivery, before pivoting to payments, now counts more than 50 million users in Nigeria alone, processing 10 million daily active users and roughly USD 12 B in monthly transaction volume.

Signs of IPO readiness have emerged. In December 2025, OPay appointed a new global management team, including James Zhou as executive chairman, former Opera CEO Lars Boilesen as co-CEO, and James Perry, a former Citigroup managing director with over 25 years of investment banking experience, as chief financial officer. Perry’s core professional background is in navigating public markets, a skill set typically sought only when a company is preparing to list, while Boilesen’s role focuses on international expansion and regulatory communication. 

OPay’s dominant position in Nigeria’s crowded fintech market may be reinforced by a new regulatory directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria. Effective April 1, 2026, the central bank has restricted point-of-sale agents to work with only one financial institution, a change analysts say could benefit larger, more stable platforms like OPay over smaller rivals. 

Opera’s fintech stake now represents about 26% of the company’s total equity, exceeding its year-end 2024 value. The company reported full-year 2025 revenue of USD 614.8 M, up 28% year-on-year, and unveiled a USD 300 M share repurchase programme in February 2026.  Without the OPay uplift, Opera’s reported net income would have been roughly 6% lower, underscoring the fintech investment’s growing influence on the browser company’s bottom line. 

However, OPay has made no formal announcement of an IPO timeline. No filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or other public statement from the fintech has confirmed any listing plans. If OPay does not list within Opera’s assumed two-year window, or if market conditions reduce its attainable valuation, Opera would be required to adjust the carrying value of its stake downward, creating earnings volatility independent of its core browser business.