African online payments service provider Direct Pay Online (DPO) has received a second investment of US$5 million from UK-based private equity fund, Apis Partners, to fund its strategic plan, including organic growth across Africa.

As reported by CIO East Africa, the investment, which follows an initial US$10 million investment made last year, will also be used to strengthen the Group's position through mergers and acquisitions, integrating the systems of all companies under the group, developing the new payments technology and its DumaPay app.

DPO Group Chairman, Offer Gat says, "The additional capital from Apis is a sign of the confidence that our partners have in us, and is a positive reinforcement of the good work we are doing with the business.

"DPO Group has achieved and exceeded the plans laid out in the first phase of the strategic plan. We have established a presence in 12 African countries namely Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Mauritius. We further plan to set up operations in Nigeria, Ghana, DRC and Mozambique by the end of 2017."

In July, the company issued a statement announcing that it was enabling 20,000 more merchants to accept mVisa payments, facilitating mobile commerce in Kenya.

According to the plan, DPO Group has also finalised the acquisition of five companies – Pay Gate and VCS in South Africa, VCS in Namibia and Botswana, and PayThru in South Africa, and are in the final stages of acquiring an additional company which will be announced later this year.

CIO East Africa says the Group has further completed the first phase of integration between DPO and PayGate's systems, and rolled out a new version of its next generation payments application, DumaPay, which is the first mobile application in Africa that supports multiple payment options.

Direct Pay Online Group CEO, Eran Feinstein says, "2017 has been an extremely successful year for us and we are very proud of the strides we have made towards the achievement of our goals. This most recent capital injection will help to further the Group's strategic plans in the region which will include the establishment of up to 26 branches across Africa, the acquisition of at least one additional company, and the continuation of our technological distribution across Africa."