M-KOPA, the pay-as-you-go financing company, has bought KilpiTek, a Finnish software firm that makes device-locking tools, for $8 million. The deal closed on March 26, 2026, and M-KOPA acquired 100% of KilpiTek’s voting equity. About $2.67 million was paid in cash. The remaining $5.33 million is described in M-KOPA’s accounts as an equity instrument, deferred consideration and/or remuneration, which means part of it may be tied to KilpiTek’s staff staying on and part may be paid later. The accounts do not say how it splits. The deal only became public this week because it appears in M-KOPA’s financial statements for 2025, which were approved on June 30 and filed at the UK company register on October 5. The acquisition happened after the year ended, so it did not change those results, and M-KOPA says the allocation of the price is not yet finished. The company said the purchase is meant to strengthen its control over a critical part of its technology stack and support its product and sourcing strategy. Kenyan outlets convert the price at about KES 1.04 billion.
Device locking is not a side feature for M-KOPA. Its model starts with financing a smartphone through small daily instalments, which lets customers build a credit history that can unlock loans, health insurance, device protection and data bundles. If a customer falls behind, the company can remotely restrict the phone, and that ability is what makes lending to people with no bank history commercially workable. Owning the lock software means M-KOPA no longer has to depend on outside providers for the tool that enforces repayment. It also signals a wider push to control more of its own stack: the company runs a smartphone assembly factory in Kenya that opened in 2023, employs more than 400 people, and says it has produced over 3.3 million devices. KilpiTek, based in Tampere, Finland, sells device locking, security hardening and device management for pay-as-you-go and micro-financing lenders. Its website names a small senior team led by co-founder and CEO Ari Heikkinen, and does not mention M-KOPA or list customers. This newsroom found no published account of KilpiTek’s revenue or size.
It is not clear that KilpiTek was an existing M-KOPA supplier. Neither the company nor the filings say so. Reporting on the filing notes that M-KOPA has used locking tools from Samsung, through its Knox software, and from the Finnish phone maker HMD, whose Softlock service lists M-KOPA as a customer. The company has not said whether KilpiTek’s software will replace those tools or sit alongside them, so it is too early to say what changes for customers.
The scale behind the purchase is large, and it is the company’s own. In July M-KOPA said it had reached 10 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, adding about 10,000 a day, and the company does not define what counts as a customer. It reports more than $2 billion in credit deployed, more than 40,000 agents and average annual revenue growth of 50% since 2020. Nigeria was its fastest market to pass one million customers. One number differs between sources: the article describing the KilpiTek deal says M-KOPA processes over one million payments a day, while the company’s July release says over two million, so the newer figure is the safer one. Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, M-KOPA has not published profit figures in anything this newsroom reviewed.
The harder question is what customers experience. Locking is contentious. Kenyan reporting on M-KOPA’s impact report calls the practice contentious, while the company says it prevents customers from “spiralling balances,” that it charges no hidden fees or late-payment penalties, and that customers can return devices and get their deposit back. Reporting on the filing adds that M-KOPA’s customer care team sends an SMS or push notification before deactivation, giving customers a chance to catch up or ask for a review. Neither the deal announcement nor the accounts say whether the in-house software will change how or when phones are locked, and no regulator is named in any of the sources reviewed. For borrowers, the practical points are the same as before: read the repayment terms, ask what happens to the deposit if a phone is returned, and keep records of payments. For the market, the deal is a bet that owning the lock is cheaper and safer than renting it, and customers and regulators will be watching how that control is used.
