Inside the Great Fintech Consolidation: Why Lagos Is Bracing for a Wave of Startup Mergers

On a humid Tuesday in Yaba, the man who built one of Lagos's better-known payment apps was doing something founders rarely admit to in public: negotiating his own exit. "Two years ago I would have called this a failure," he told me over lukewarm suya at a spot off Herbert Macaulay Way, asking that I not name his company until the paperwork clears. "Now I call it survival. The music stopped and I'm one of the few still holding a chair." That sentiment is spreading through Nigeria's fintech corridor. After the frothy years of 2021 and 2022, when a Lagos startup could raise a seed round on a pitc…