In Nigeria’s fast-paced public debt market, a new crop of borrowers is showing up. Last month, Nairagram, a pan-African payments company that claims presence in 37 countries and annual transaction volumes exceeding $2bn, said its $6m commercial paper issuance closed fully subscribed within 48 hours.
The company, founded in 2016 by Idris Ibrahim and Gbolahan Obanikor, says it is principally based in Georgia in the United States. Its platform facilitates cross-border payments such as money transfers, airtime top-ups and bill payments to Nigeria and across Africa. The business also carries a growing trail of user complaints. None of that, apparently, deterred investors.
Nairagram’s chapter in Nigeria’s debt capital markets is only beginning. The $6m issuance represents the first drawdown from a broader $29m programme scheduled for 2026. If the company completes the programme, it will extend a pattern that has started to emerge among Nigerian technology firms: tapping domestic debt markets as venture funding becomes harder to secure.
When a commercial paper issuance closes within two days of opening, it usually indicates the order book was effectively built before the public announcement. Anchor investors commit privately through arrangers before the formal launch. That practice is not unusual in Nigeria’s debt capital markets. But it does mean the public phase of the issuance can be largely procedural. Investors outside the arranger’s institutional network rarely have a practical opportunity to participate once the deal is announced.
The broader market backdrop explains why more technology companies are exploring this route. Last year, corporate Nigeria raised a record ₦1.61tn ($1.12bn) through commercial paper, according to FMDQ Exchange data, representing a 40% increase on the previous year. Yet technology firms barely featured in that activity. Of the 58 approved commercial paper issuances listed on the exchange as of October 23, 2025, only two came from pure-play tech companies.
This year already looks different.
On March 5, Dimension Data Nigeria signed documentation for a ₦20bn bond programme at the Capital Club in Victoria Island, Lagos. The programme is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and structured through a special purpose vehicle, Dimension Data SPV Funding Plc.
The structure isolates specific infrastructure assets — including fibre routes, enterprise connectivity equipment and network infrastructure — which serve as collateral backing the bond. Securitised structures of this kind are common in telecoms and infrastructure finance, but have been relatively rare among Nigerian technology businesses.
A few days later, BAS Capital announced the pre-opening of a ₦3bn commercial paper issuance for Sycamore Integrated Solutions, a digital lending company. The issuance is structured in two tranches: ₦1.5bn at 180 days, priced at a 21.46% discount rate with a yield of roughly 24%, and another ₦1.5bn at 270 days with a yield of about 25%.
Those yields reflect Nigeria’s high-interest-rate environment following extended monetary tightening by the Central Bank of Nigeria. For institutional investors — including pension funds, insurance firms and asset managers — commercial paper offers yields above Treasury bills while remaining within SEC-registered investment structures.
Payments company Payaza Africa has gone further than most. The firm has raised more than ₦70bn across six commercial paper series since it began issuing in the market. Of that amount, ₦32.53bn has already been fully repaid. Another ₦50bn issuance is currently in the market.
The company recently secured a credit rating upgrade from DataPro to A1, up from BBB+. GCR Ratings has assigned the firm an A3 long-term rating. These ratings matter in practice. Many institutional investors — particularly pension funds — are restricted to instruments above specific rating thresholds.
An A1 short-term rating expands the pool of investors that can buy the paper. It also allows the issuer to price subsequent issuances at lower yields, gradually reducing its cost of capital.
Other tech-enabled issuers include Polysmart SPV Limited and Finceptive Limited. These are lesser-known firms compared to leading names like Moniepoint, Flutterwave, or Paystack.
For companies that establish a consistent repayment track record, the effect compounds. Each successful issuance improves investor confidence, which in turn lowers the yield demanded on future debt.
That dynamic is now beginning to reshape how some Nigerian technology firms think about financing.
For years, venture capital dominated the sector’s funding narrative. But as global venture markets cooled and investors pulled back from emerging markets, alternative funding channels have become more attractive. Debt capital markets offer a different trade-off: funding without equity dilution, but with strict repayment obligations and exposure to interest-rate cycles.
Nigeria’s institutional investors, meanwhile, have shown growing appetite for high-yield corporate instruments as government securities struggle to keep pace with inflation.
The convergence of these incentives is pulling technology companies closer to the country’s domestic debt markets.
The shift is still small relative to the overall corporate debt landscape. Telecom operators, banks and industrial groups continue to dominate issuance volumes. But the appearance of fintechs, digital lenders and infrastructure-driven technology companies suggests the boundaries are beginning to move.
If current activity continues, Nigeria’s debt capital markets may soon host a new category of regular issuers: technology firms building funding pipelines that look less like venture-backed startups and more like conventional corporate borrowers.