Helicarrier Acquires Stake In Pan-African Fintech Firm, Accrue
Previously called Bitkoin Africa and later Buycoins, Helicarrier launched as a peer-to-peer bitcoin trading platform. Having merged its five products — Buycoins (a simple way to buy and sell cryptocurrency in Africa); Buycoins Pro (orderbook for advanced digital trading); Sendcash (crypto-powered remittance); Sendcash Pay (a suite of developer tools that let you add borderless payment experiences to your digital products) and NGNT (a collateral-backed digital currency that bridges the Naira with the advantages of decentralized blockchain technology) — the company in 2021 announced that it was changing its name to Helicarrier.
Founded in 2017 by Ire Aderinokun, Timi Ajiboye and Tomiwa Lasebikan; the company was part of the 63 startups that launched at Y Combinator in 2018. Now, the mission-driven company is set to develop access to financial services across Africa by ushering in digital currencies.
In a press release by Helicarrier on 6th October 2022, the company stated that it has acquired shares of Accrue’s stock.
Accrue, looking to expand its operations to other African countries after establishing markets in Ghana and Nigeria is a long-term wealth-building app built for beginners to invest. Users can save in dollars (stablecoins) and earn up to 6% annual interest. They also have access to auto-invest in top-performing stocks and cryptocurrencies with minimal risk and likelier profit.
According to Helicarrier, it has completed the “signing of definitive agreements to acquire a significant equity interest in Accrue. As part of this agreement, Buycoins Basic will be transitioning into Accrue effective immediately.”
The parties have had an established working history together wherein, Accrue’s founders were ex-Helicarrier teammates sharing the mission to leverage transformational digital currency and help build African wealth.
Speaking on the development, CEO Helicarrier, Timi Ajiboye said that the acquisition would position Buycoin users to over 100k.
“Embarking on this partnership underscores our dedication to democratising wealth building on the continent. Accrue has built the perfect wealth-building tool for the internet-powered African & we’re excited to bring that experience to 100k+ Buycoins users.”
As for Co-founder Accrue, Clinton Mbah: “Everything you love about Helicarrier culture and its products — ease of use, timely customer support, fantastic product sense, execution speed, technical chops, and tenacity in the face of adversity, are tenets we brought over to Accrue. We’re committed to these tenets forever.”
Helicarrier also has a significant equity interest in Abacus, a fintech company that unifies the banking, investment and crypto accounts of its customers on its app and helps them manage their spending.