The company said it will use part of the capital to expand its team, geographical operations and marketing to increase its 7,000-strong active agent network three-fold this year. In 2018, the company got its first big break while working on TraderMoni, a small loan scheme for micro traders pioneered by the Nigerian government. The company sensed an opportunity and decided to rebrand as CrowdForce, a financial services distribution network that can turn any merchant into a mobile bank branch.“The idea was that if we could build this successfully well, several other fintechs can layer to deliver their services to the mass markets and that will still be in line with our objective of building our distribution,” said CEO Oluwatomi Ayorinde. But it’s PayForce, its second product, that the company has placed in the driving seat. The company strikes partnerships with larger brick-and-mortar businesses such as gas stations and turns them into mobile bank branches that offer float services while storing their cash on a PayForce digital wallet.“These stations [gas stations] collect cash from their sales of petrol daily. The company said it has partnered with 19,000 fuel stations, 20,0000 resellers and 6,000 pharmacies to broaden its distribution network. The Nigerian agency banking company charges a 0.6% commission per transaction its partners make across all boards. Ayorinde said CrowdForce will use the funding to distribute more point of sale terminals to its partners in the next 12 to 18 months as the company, in a statement, said it aims to bring financial services within one kilometer, or within 15 minutes, of all Nigerians.“We see significant value in the product [CrowdForce] as it is solving a real problem by providing access to critical financial services in rural areas that have been overlooked by traditional financial institutions,” said Aruwa Capital founder and managing partner Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes. With this model, CrowdForce claims to have the largest liquidity among Nigerian agent banking networks, leveraging more than ₦1.7 trillion via its partners. CrowdForce says it has been cash positive since 2020 while growing 25% month-on-month to serve 1.9 million unique customers in 25 Nigerian states to date.