Blackcopper

Blackcopper is a Lagos-based financial services company founded in 2020 by Olumuyiwa (Muyiwa) Faulkner (CEO) and Azeez Oluwafemi (CTO), who between them had about two decades of banking experience. The company began as a lending business providing instant working-capital loans to nano, micro and small businesses through a mobile app, with approval targeted in under five minutes and loans issued without collateral; the CEO described an average loan size of about ₦35,000. It also supplied lenders with data intended to support credit decisions.

The product range was later broadened into a neo-bank positioning covering loans, savings and investments, bills payment and airtime purchase, plus a digital community offering business videos, founder stories, training and webinars for small business owners. In February 2022 the company launched BC Health, a product aimed at users facing large costs for medical tests and treatment. Offline activity included Local Purchase Order financing, where the underlying transaction served as the collateral.

By May 2024 the company faced severe loan-recovery problems: it reported being unable to recover more than 60,000 disbursed loans, had ceased disbursing new loans, had laid off roughly 30 of its 40 staff, and owed about ₦1.2 billion to at least 75 debt investors, of which ₦200 million had been repaid over the preceding eighteen months.

Founding story

According to co-founder and CEO Olumuyiwa Faulkner, Blackcopper grew out of the founders' experience building solutions for a bank and several fintechs, where they observed that nano, micro and small businesses in emerging markets were excluded from fast, easy access to financial services. Faulkner has said small business owners account for roughly 70% of Nigeria's GDP and employment yet are not supported by financial institutions, which concentrate on large corporates, and that many such businesses have a high chance of failing within their first year. He has cited the COVID-19 period as a turning point during which he moved to start the business. Faulkner's prior employers include GTBank, Moniepoint and Flutterwave.

Business model

The company lent directly to small businesses and consumers through its app, funding disbursements in part with debt investments raised from individual investors who expected a return. Alongside credit it offered savings and investment products, bill payment and airtime, and a health-related product, and it positioned its proprietary credit assessment system as a service to lenders making credit decisions.

Revenue derived from lending to nano, micro and small businesses, including non-collateralised app loans averaging about ₦35,000 and offline Local Purchase Order financing, supplemented by adjacent financial services such as savings, investments and bill payments.

Traction

The CEO said in December 2022 that the company had registered about 200,000 small businesses after roughly two years of operation. Reporting in May 2024 stated that Blackcopper had loaned over ₦2.1 billion to customers, disbursed more than 60,000 loans it could not recover, and had grown to about 40 employees before cutting around 30 of them. The CEO maintained the non-performing loan ratio was initially 12-15%.

Latest developments

In May 2024 TechCabal reported that Blackcopper could not recover over 60,000 loans, had accumulated ₦1.2 billion of debt to at least 75 individual debt investors, had repaid only ₦200 million over eighteen months, and had stopped disbursing loans. About 30 of its 40 employees were laid off and the company engaged loan recovery firms. The CEO attributed the failure to a funding mismatch between short-term investor capital and long-term lending needs, and said he intended to redeploy the company's technology and team to help other companies build apps and automate processes while also considering equity fundraising.