Hold my Roobois Tea 🍵: South African Fintechs say as they leapfrog 🦘Funding and Innovation.
African Fintech Insights and news roundup | Vol 44 | Oct 10th, 2023
Just in case you don’t know, Rooibos (pronounced ROY-boss) tea is rated as one of the most popular beverages in South Africa.
It is caffeine-free and definitely Alcohol-free, so it is perfect for anyone watching their weight, height, length, and of course account balance 😉.
Fun fact: 🎉🎈Rooibos Tea only grows in South Africa.
The Tea on SA Fintechs Current Funding Spree.
So why did Fintechs in SA put a pause on drinking that lovely tea in the last 2 weeks ( not like they did, but you know what I mean).. they were busy raising over 60 million dollars!
Yes, in the past 2 weeks, 4 SA Fintechs raised a total of 61.7 million dollars.
This is a big considering that there has been a funding spell in that part of the continent since TymeBank announced their 77.8 Million raise in Q2 of this year.
Let’s look at some interesting facts about funding in SA since this year.
South Africa has the most funding for the Insurtech Category, which is not surprising since they lead the continent in Insurance products.
Fintechs in SA have raised a total of $236.6 Million dollars this year!
The largest single funding goes to TymeBank followed by Peach Payments which has raised twice, 2-digit figures this year! more on Peach later.
About Peach Payments
Peach Payments is worth looking at a bit closely as they have raised $61 million in 2 separate rounds just this year. A few facts about Peach Payments.
They are an 11-year-old company, founded in 2012.
They are considered the 2nd second-largest online payment gateway in SA.
They are also present in Kenya and Mauritius.
They are known for delivering enterprise-grade products, especially with the introduction of their open-source commerce solution for merchants -Nopcommerce.
Also reading about their operations, I came across this interesting dashboard where they maintain performance stats for the different products and payment methods. This might be one of the reasons they have a large chunk of travel, e-commerce and food delivery merchants.
but this is where it gets interesting - the financials.
Peach Payments has been reported to have grown by a whopping 650% since 2020. This information is on the website of one of their lead investors, so I assume it has been verified ( we are not Dashing to any conclusions here 😩)
In 2022 only, they grew by 80% in an economy that had a combination of energy cuts and currency concerns. Yup!
The Weekly Roundup
Finally, on today’s dashboard, these are 7 ways the ecosystem was redefined Last Week 🚀
And that is all for this week’s newsletter.
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