Payments company Orchestrate acquired by Nigerian fintech infrastructure startup Bloc

Bloc, a Nigerian full-service provider of banking as a service (BaaS) infrastructure, has announced the purchase of Getwallets, a wallets-as-a-service firm that recently changed its name to Orchestrate, a payments orchestration company.

Bloc, a fintech infrastructure company founded in 2021, provides a comprehensive set of building blocks—infrastructure, licenses, compliance, and capital—that enables any company to offer fintech solutions to their customers. This enables them to increase their value to their stakeholders, be they customers, investors, or employees.

Orchestrate, previously Getwallets, sees itself as the quickest way to expand into new areas, add new payment methods to fintech companies, and provide clients in Africa a variety of payment options—all with little to no coding. The startup also began operations in 2021.

Bloc will be able to concentrate on offering seamless BaaS and banking services thanks to the strategic purchase of Orchestrate, and Orchestrate will lead its financial infrastructure with its unique payments orchestration API. With Orchestrate continuing to operate independently under the direction of its creator and CEO Jerry Enebeli, the purchase is funded equally by cash and stock.

Bloc recently debuted its SuperAgency product, which enables authorized businesses to provide agency banking services, and has handled more than $30 million USD in the past year through its bill payments API alone. Its ability to provide fintech infrastructure, such as online payments, subscription management, BNPL payment infrastructure, virtual wallets, bill payments, and invoicing in its Fintech-as-a-Service suite of APIs, has increased as a result of its acquisition of Orchestrate.

“We are proud of our input in helping shape the African fintech space and excited to welcome the Orchestrate team into the Bloc family. Part of our vision has always been to empower businesses of all sizes to offer seamless payment solutions to their customers, which is essential not just to the experience of the end user but also to the sector’s growth,” said Edmund Olotu, founder of Bloc.

“Jerry and his team have built an incredible platform that is a great fit with what we were looking to add to our suite of services so it made sense to acquire their proven expertise rather than building our own platform from scratch. This is an exciting evolution for both businesses as we look to grow and build even more solutions that ultimately supports the growth of African tech businesses in the coming years.’’

Enebeli declared himself “thrilled” to bring Orchestrate’s expertise and technology to the Bloc team.

“It was clear that our business growth goals aligned and that we could mutually benefit from combining our talent, resources and expertise to create a unique infrastructure that can power African fintech. We’re looking forward to working together to close the fragmented gaps in cross-platform payments and powering many more businesses to scale their markets, whether in Africa or globally,” he said.