Business Start Date: 2020

Business Price: 10.2M

Sales (TTM): $592,799

EBITDA (Profit): ($80,610) 

Business Multiple: 16.9X Revenue

Registered Users: 70,000 

Total Value Transacted: $5.7B

Traded Volume: $1.1B

Total Unique Transactions: 2.5M

Digital Debit Cards Issued: 2,000

Assets Under Management: $5M-6M

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The Opportunity 

This listing is a 3 year old digital asset exchange and financial technology platform that is redefining how people (in Africa) trade, use and invest in crypto. They have revolutionized the experience of crypto trading for Africans (and others!) who may have no experience in crypto before this.. The total value transacted on their platform is $5.7B + transactions, trade volume of $1.1B +, monthly trade volume is $65M, 70k + users onboarded and 2.5k + active users in their platform and with an revenue of almost 600k TTM. These strong indications put the company as one of the top players in their space, despite their relatively small revenue numbers. This business differentiates itself not only by its ability to thrive in a bear market but also by its main user base using the platform for practical day-to-day uses (like paying utilities/bills) rather than the speculative gambling seen in other exchanges. 

The business is being sold turn-key as an asset or stock sale, targeted to an experienced player in the crypto space who wants access to a trusted brand in the expanding African fin-tech market. 

General Highlights

• High growth crypto exchange that’s thriving in a bear market!

• 70,000 registered users have done 2.5M transactions, totalling over 1.15B trade volume.

• Full team in place to keep growing business post-acquisition

• Diversified opportunities to expand $600k+ revenue streams and scale business to tens of millions.

• Custodial crypto exchange with $5-6M in assets under management.

Niche

The business is a simple crypto exchange which allows users to buy, sell, deposit, withdraw, and swap 25 different crypto assets but it has many other parts of its model. It differentiates in the competitive crypto exchange space in a few ways but most importantly by advertising that is allows you to buy and sell crypto for no fees. 

The business model focuses on being one of the top crypto exchanges for sub-saharan Africa, which is a $100B+ market (valued by yearly crypto volume). It focuses on an attractive market of users who not only actively day trade crypto for their income but use crypto for practical purposes (Like paying bills) and actually get debit cards via This business (2,000 people have gotten so far!).

More than bettering their users trading experience, they also enable them to access basic financial activities that traditional financials providers threaten. They focus intensely on the safety of the users and the security of the funds. They use the most competent identity verification partners to onboard their users and implore the best compliance solutions to keep fraud out of their community.

95% of transactions are crypto to crypto transactions while 5% are crypto to cash transactions (around 2M is withdrawn to cash a month). 

Customer Base

The business has 70,000 registered users who have produced 2.5M transactions and over 1.1B in traded assets. 14,000 of the users are fully KYC’ed while 60,000 users are level 1 KYC’ed.

This base of users is mostly people in Africa who want to trade crypto. The bulk’ customers are Youths and High Net-worth individuals. Both market groups have quickly recognized cryptocurrency as an income generating asset in Africa and participation from both groups is on the rise.

For Youths: the key consideration is an alternate source of income through P2P Trade.
For High Net-worth individuals: they have a long term investment view in anticipation of larger ROIs and This business is the perfect to help them de-risk the volatility of the market.

Most users are active day traders (80%) while the rest are retail investors who hold crypto on the platform long term.

Traffic

In the last 12 months, the business got over 264,202 visitors on the website and app.

As you might expect, most of the visitors are from Nigeria (52.85%) while other top countries include: Ukraine (12.44%), Sri Lanka (8.88%) and the United States(3.2%).

As far as traffic source, the site has a diverse assortment which are all similar in impact to the business but across all the sites, the following 5 sources are leading the way in terms of traffic:

1. Direct - about 53% of traffic

2. Organic Search - about 25% of traffic

3. Referral - about 11% of traffic

4. Organic Social - about 6% of traffic

5. Paid Video - about 4% of traffic

6. Paid Search -  2% of traffic

7. Other - 1% of traffic

Revenue Sources

The main revenue source for This business is commissions on trades - while the company doesn’t charge fees on each trade, it takes a small commission on each trade and this is how it makes money. 

This business has 3 key revenue drivers; 

1. Transaction and Transaction volume 

   1. An increase or decrease in transaction volume directly affects the revenue of the revenue model. 

2. Marketing

   1. Product reach, visibility, viability and transparency directly affect the user’s confidence in using product ultimately transaction volume. 

3. Number of Listed Tokens

   1. New token options increase user transactions and consequently the revenue. 

Financials

Here is some historical financial data on the business. 

Sales (USD)

2021 - 359k

2022 - 527k

2023 (through June) - 348k

Profit (USD)

2021 - (46k)

2022 - (393k)

2023 (through June) - (70k)

Operations/Team

The software platform manages the whole customer experience as it relates to trading cryptocurrencies. 

The team currently stands as a team of 33 who help to tackle partnerships, technology management, marketing, admin roles, and support requests. In this, there is currently:

1. CEO

2. CMO

   1. Manages 9 people

3. CTO

   1. Manages 7 Developers

4. HR

   1. Manages 1 Person

5. Operations

   1. Manages 1 Person

6. Customer Support

   1. Manages 2 people

7. Strategy

   1. Manages 1 person

8. Accountant

   1. Manages 1 person

See document in data room for more information.

Marketing

This business differentiates from its competitors by offering the following features:

1. Crypto-to-crypto swaps

2. Zero Confirmation Deposits

3. Debit Cards

4. Utilities (paying bills via crypto)

5. Seamless User Experience

6. Multi-chain support

7. Robust Support

8. Low Trading Fees

In combination with these value adds, This business spends a little money on getting users to their platform - about 3% of their expenses were marketing in 2022 while it was around 25% in 2021. 

Main Expenses

The main expenses of the business are:

1. Commissions and fees from crypto supply networks - about 40%

2. Dues and subscriptions - about 25%

3. Legal, marketing, and misc expenses - about 10%

4. Payroll - about 25%

Work and Skills Required

The owner has a active role in the business currently as they manage everything as a CEO - the new buyer is free to hire someone to replace them as CEO if they want a less involved role.

Who is the ideal buyer for this business?

Someone in the crypto industry or has experience in fin-tech would be a great target for this business. It is not hard to understand but given the multiple the business is being priced at, to maximize value, you should be specialized and the average investor wouldn’t be a great fit. 

What (if any) post sale support is included with the sale?

The owners are willing to stay on for 6 months as a transition period but they would like to exit after that. 

Valuation

Business is valued at 10.2M which is a high multiple of current revenue but is a small fraction of the amount of crypto traded on the platform and potential revenue opportunities the new owner could garner. 

SEO Analysis:

Authority Score: 6

Backlinks: 274 (97% dofollow)

Referring Domains: 23 (70% dofollow)

App Analysis:

IOS Reviews:  445 review at average rating of 4.7/5 

IOS Downloads: 24,800

Android Reviews: 1,400 reviews at average rating of 4.?

Android Downloads: 74,000

Social Media 

Facebook - 3.4K followers

Instagram - 19k followers

TikTok - 72 followers

LinkedIn - 557 followers

YouTube - 477 subscribers

Expansion Opportunities for New Owner

The business can be grown immensely by:

1. Expanding to more African countries

2. Emphasizing P2P Launch

3. Expanding This business Academy 

4. Expanding Referral Program 

5. Token Marketing

6. Expand Order Types

7. Expand Crypto-backed Loans

Barriers to Entry

There are a ton of crypto exchanges and it is not hard to start one but it does take a decent amount of infrastructure to create one. In the crypto world, it is very hard to gain trust from users though and this takes a lot of trust and transparency which This business has garnered. 

Reason for Sale

Owners are selling to exit the business, cash out, and work on new projects.

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All Assets Included with Sale 

All business assets are included with the sale, including but not limited to:

1. Domains

2. Website and all content 

3. Proprietary Software 

4. All customer bases

5. Hosting and Software Accounts 

6. Monetization Accounts 

7. Bank Accounts

8. Social Media Accounts

9. Work contracts

10. Assets under Management

11. Future Sales

12. Customer Contracts

13. Partner contracts

14. Misc Accounts

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About the Agent 

FIH.com is a Manhattan-based M&A advisory firm specializing in the sale of SaaS, eCommerce, & Digital Media companies from $1M-$100M. If you are in the market OR you are looking to exit a business that fits these specifications, then we encourage you to reach out to us for a free consultation.