WapiPay investor pulls out after Ndichu brothers assault drama

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 19 – Keeple Africa ventures Tuesday relinquished its investment rights at a fintech startup, WapiPay over allegations that its co-founders Eddie and Paul Ndichu assaulted women at a Nairobi hotel.

Keeple Africa ventures co-founder Ryosuke Yamawaki made the announcement a day after a video resurfaced online showing the twin brothers engaged in an assault.

The video has since attracted criticism from Kenyans and activists who condemn gender-based violence.

“In light of the alleged assault on women by the founders of our portfolio company Wapi Pay, we Keeple Africa ventures hereby announce that we have zero tolerance on such conduct and announce that we will relinquish all the rights of our investment stake in Wapi pay,” he said.

Keeple Africa is among several other investors which, two months ago, injected USD 2.2 million in pre-seed funding into the Singaporean and Kenyan-based firm that seeks to scale up global payments and remittances between Africa and Asia.

Other investors included EchoVC & China-based global fund MSA Capital, which has invested in domestic Asian unicorns such as Meituan and NIO, and international unicorns such as Nubank and Klarna.

Wapipay has since denied the assault claims explaining that the twins engaged in the altercation in an attempt to neutralize a confrontation between the two unidentified women.

“We find it distasteful and troubling and want to firmly state that any type of behaviour involving violence against women does not reflect our values,” a statement read in part.

While it said it does not condone such violence, the fintech said the incident was reported to the police and director of criminal investigation for further probe.

The funding raised in August, Wapi Pay had said, would be used to ease remittances flows between Africa and Asia.

It targeted to raise USD 500 million in remittances by the end of 2022, grow the number of registered suppliers and beneficiaries in Asia to 100,000.

Founded in 2019, Wapi Pay delivers platform-to-platform integrations, global accounts, and virtual accounts (wallets) through its technology to offer its partners and customers convenient global payments and financial products for individuals, merchants and businesses.

Wapi Pay is also a subsidiary of Wapi Capital an Africa-based fintech Venture Company that is investing and creating solutions in financial services using new technology.