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M-KOPA, the pan-African FinTech company, has acquired KilpiTek, a Finnish software company specialising in device-locking and related technology services.
In a financial disclosure, the Kenyan pay-as-you-go financing company revealed that it acquired 100% of KilpiTek’s voting equity interests for $8 million through a combination of cash and M-KOPA ordinary shares. The cash component amounted to $2.67 million, with equity and other consideration, including deferred consideration and/or remuneration, accounting for the remaining $5.33 million.
“The transaction is intended to strengthen the Group’s control over a critical component of its technology stack and support ongoing product and sourcing strategy,” the company said in its financial disclosure.
The acquisition, which closed on 26 March 2026, occurred after M-KOPA’s financial year ended 31 December 2025, and has therefore been treated as a non-adjusting subsequent event under IFRS 3, meaning it does not impact the company’s reported financial position or results for that year. The company also noted that the purchase price allocation remains incomplete at the time of the financial statements being authorised for issue.
Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, M-KOPA is a leading African FinTech platform that provides affordable financial and digital products to what it describes as “Every Day Earners”. The company’s model begins with financing a smartphone through small daily micro-instalments, enabling customers to build a credit history that then unlocks access to digital loans, health insurance, device protection, and affordable data bundles.
The company operates across five markets — Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa — and has deployed over $2 billion in credit. It processes over one million payments a day and operates one of the region’s largest smartphone assembly facilities. In July 2026, the company announced that it has reached 10 million customers across its 5 African markets.
In Kenya, the company opened the continent’s largest smartphone assembly factory in 2023, which employs over 400 people, has achieved global ISO certification, and has produced over 3.3 million devices to date. Beyond East Africa, the company highlighted that Nigeria became its fastest-growing market, surpassing 1 million customers. Africa’s largest direct sales distribution network supports the company’s reach, with more than 40,000 agents across five countries.
M-KOPA also reported that its revenue has grown at an average annual rate of 50% since 2020.
KilpiTek Oy is a software company providing industry-leading endpoint and cloud management platforms for locking, unlocking, and securely managing and monitoring mobile and IoT devices, with AI-driven forensics and behaviour monitoring capabilities. Headquartered in Tampere, Finland, KilpiTek’s solutions are designed specifically for pay-as-you-go, microfinancing, and complex commercial device management applications.
For M-KOPA, device-locking technology is core to its business model as it acts as the way to enforce repayment across its financed smartphones. When customers fall behind on payments, the ability to remotely lock a financed device serves as the primary mechanism to make credit extension to unbanked customers commercially viable.
With the acquisition of KilpiTek, M-KOPA will be able to bring this key feature in-house and strengthen its control over a key compliance mechanism. It also signals the company’s aim to vertically integrate the technology stack that powers its platform rather than rely on third-party providers.
With over half a billion adults in Africa still not connected to the internet, M-KOPA’s model has proven to be the easiest way for them to own devices and go online. By owning the underlying device-management infrastructure, the company can focus on product innovation and credit delivery as it adds hundreds of thousands of new customers monthly across five markets.
