CrowdForce
Winter 2020AcquiredCrowdforce is an app that allows any local merchant in Africa,…
Pressure-test this opportunity
Explore the risks and possibilities with a prompt for ChatGPT, Claude, or your agent.
Crowdforce is an app that allows any local merchant in Africa,…
Explore the risks and possibilities with a prompt for ChatGPT, Claude, or your agent.
CrowdForce began as a way to collect reliable data from markets that lived offline. Its field agents ran surveys, retail audits, and identity checks in Nigerian communities. A government project then exposed a more valuable problem: after profiling millions of micro-traders, the program still struggled to put money in their hands. CrowdForce converted its local agent network into PayForce, a branchless-banking product that let merchants provide cash withdrawals, deposits, transfers, and bill payments.[1]
FairMoney acquired PayForce in March 2023. The companies did not disclose terms, although TechCrunch sources placed the cash-and-stock deal at $15 million to $20 million. CrowdForce CEO Oluwatomi Ayorinde joined FairMoney to run the combined payments unit.[2] PayForce later became FairMoney Business, preserving the merchant product inside a licensed bank.[3]
CrowdForce's durable asset combined distribution and liquidity in a country where cash remained dominant and bank branches were scarce. The acquisition joined that last-mile network with FairMoney's deposits, credit, license, and consumer base. It was a strategic exit from an increasingly capital-intensive contest, not a public-market listing or documented shutdown.
Image 1 / 2
Oluwatomi and Damilola Ayorinde, cousins with engineering and operating backgrounds, started MobileForms in 2015. Companies, governments, and NGOs wanted information from low-income and rural markets, but economic activity happened through fragmented physical outlets. MobileForms recruited local entrepreneurs, students, and shop owners to complete mobile surveys and tasks for small rewards.[4]
The founding model created an offline distribution layer before the company knew its best use. Clients could dispatch market research, retail audits, mystery shopping, and field verification to agents already embedded in their communities. In 2018, MobileForms used 20,000 agents to perform know-your-customer checks on 4.5 million traders for TraderMoni, a Nigerian government microcredit program.[1]
Registration solved only half the job. Many approved traders lacked bank accounts or lived far from a branch, so digital records did not translate into usable cash. MobileForms rebranded as CrowdForce in 2019 and shifted from gathering data about offline commerce to distributing financial services through it.[5]
MobileForms was a field-work platform. Businesses created campaigns; agents received location-aware surveys or tasks on phones, completed them locally, and earned rewards. The network gave formal organizations a way to see and verify commerce that did not leave a rich digital trail.[4]
PayForce turned those relationships into bank-like access points. A merchant received a POS device and app, accepted card or transfer payments, paid bills, and performed cash-in or cash-out transactions for nearby customers. Transaction fees gave the merchant another income stream. CrowdForce retained MobileForms for data work, but put PayForce at the center of the business.[1]
Agent liquidity was the operating constraint. A cash-out agent can serve customers only while enough notes remain in the till; a cash-in agent accumulates cash it needs to convert into digital float. CrowdForce partnered with fuel stations and other cash-heavy businesses so nearby agents could rebalance without a long trip to a bank. It also distributed terminals through pharmacies and reseller networks. The product combined software, hardware, settlement, recruitment, support, compliance, and physical cash movement.
By acquisition, PayForce had expanded into business accounts, finance-team tools, B2B payments, and virtual cards. FairMoney's chief executive argued that its software was designed for merchants and finance managers, while many competitors had built only for agents.[2]
CrowdForce served two linked users. Small merchants used PayForce to accept payments, provide neighborhood banking, and earn commissions. Underbanked residents used those merchants as nearby cash and payment points. The company concentrated on central and northern Nigeria, where branch access was thin and cash use high.[8]
Public sources establish the need but not CrowdForce's serviceable revenue. TechCrunch cited 4.8 bank branches and 19 ATMs per 100,000 adults in Nigeria, compared with global averages of 13 and 40. Less than a third of adults had a branch or ATM within one kilometer.[1] CrowdForce aimed to bring financial services within one kilometer or 15 minutes of every Nigerian.
The market was large enough for several national networks, but raw terminal count did not determine revenue quality. Active agents, transaction frequency, float availability, failed transactions, fraud, support cost, and commission splits shaped the economics. CrowdForce did not disclose enough data to calculate those unit economics.
CrowdForce competed with OPay, TeamApt's Moniepoint, banks, mobile-money operators, and smaller agent networks. These rivals could subsidize terminals, build dense agent coverage, and bundle accounts or loans. Moniepoint says it became Nigeria's leading agency-banking network by 2020, processing up to $7 billion monthly across 120 million transactions.[9]
PayForce's differentiation was merchant orientation and local liquidity. It was not enough to guarantee independent scale. A network needs capital for terminals, support, compliance, settlement, cash rebalancing, and credit. FairMoney brought a licensed bank, deposits, lending, and more than a million retail and small-business customers at the time of the deal.[2]
CrowdForce earned a commission on transactions conducted through PayForce and charged clients for MobileForms market data.[5] The model aligned revenue with usage, but required up-front spending on terminal deployment, agent acquisition, support, compliance, and working-capital partnerships. Debt could finance some repeatable hardware or float need; $1 million of the 2022 round was debt.
Before that round, the founders had bootstrapped and raised about $500,000 from investors including 500 Startups, Ventures Platform, and Right Side Capital. The $3.6 million pre-Series A was intended to triple active agents from 7,000, expand regional operations, hire, and market the network.[5]
The TraderMoni deployment was the clearest proof of reach: 20,000 agents registered 4.5 million traders. By early 2022, CrowdForce reported 7,000 active PayForce agents and partnerships spanning fuel stations, pharmacies, and resellers. It claimed partner access to nearly ₦1.7 trillion in liquidity, though the figure represented liquidity available through partners rather than company-owned cash.[1]
At acquisition, TechCrunch reported more than 10,000 businesses on PayForce. Those figures were company-reported; revenue, retention, active-terminal cohorts, and fraud loss were not published. The product's survival offers a second form of validation. FairMoney kept PayForce operating, renamed it FairMoney Business, and currently markets accounts, POS acceptance, loans, savings, and multi-outlet management.[10]
FairMoney consolidated CrowdForce's flagship product into a licensed banking stack. FairMoney wanted a merchant product and offline distribution; CrowdForce needed the funds and banking stack to compete faster. Ayorinde said winning required product, execution, marketing, and capital, and emphasized speed in Nigeria's market when asked whether fundraising conditions forced a sale.[2]
Official deal terms remain undisclosed. TechCrunch sources estimated $15 million to $20 million in cash and stock, while Aruwa said it became an investor in the combined business.[11] Public accounts also differ on legal scope: FairMoney and TechCrunch describe buying PayForce, while YC and Aruwa describe CrowdForce as acquired. The observable operating outcome is unambiguous. The flagship product, its CEO, merchants, and distribution capabilities moved under FairMoney; the CrowdForce brand ceased to be the main customer proposition.
The sale also shows what was becoming difficult to own independently. Agency banking rewarded network density, but adjacent services—business accounts, lending, savings, payroll, cards, and merchant acquiring—raised revenue and retention. A small network could build those products or join a licensed balance sheet. CrowdForce chose the second path.
Regulation has since tightened the operating burden. CBN's December 2024 circular required dedicated agent float accounts, cash-out limits, PTSA-connected terminals, and daily reporting to NIBSS.[12] Its October 2025 guidelines added detailed rules for onboarding, security, consumer protection, locations, and agent exclusivity, with location and exclusivity provisions effective April 1, 2026.[13] Those changes favor licensed, well-capitalized principals and make CrowdForce's acquisition logic stronger in retrospect.