Peach Payments, a South African fintech startup, has raised US$31 million in Series A funding from Apis Partners to accelerate its growth across the continent and expand its product offering.
Peach Payments, founded in Cape Town in 2012, offers a comprehensive toolkit to assist businesses in accepting, managing, and disbursing payments via web and mobile. It is South Africa’s second largest online payment gateway, and it has also expanded to Kenya and Mauritius.
The startup has seen extraordinary growth in recent years, with revenue increasing by more than 650 percent since 2020, and by 80 percent in 2022 alone, and it is now planning further expansion after raising US$31 million in Series A funding. Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners, a UK-based asset manager, made the investment.
The investment is subject to approval by the South African Competition Commission as well as customary procedural and closing conditions. Existing investors in Peach Payments include UW Ventures, Launch Africa, and AG Ventures.
The investment will be used to accelerate the company’s expansion into new African markets, expand its product offering, and strengthen its core merchant value proposition. Apis Partners will support Peach Payments’ growth and geographic expansion by leveraging its networks and experience scaling leading payment companies.
“Our mission at Peach Payments is to help African businesses and entrepreneurs succeed in digital commerce.” We want to be the foundation upon which they build their business. This was our original vision when we started, and it is more relevant today than ever,” said Rahul Jain, Peach Payments’ co-founder and CEO.
“In the last three years, we’ve seen incredible growth driven by fundamental forces and shifts in consumer and business adoption of digital commerce.” We’ve onboarded new clients in almost every market segment, from retail to digital learning, fitness, and even traditional financial services. We’ve built a very strong team with exceptional operators, and I’m excited to work with the Apis team to take this business to the next level. The Apis team brings a wealth of experience in fintech from around the world, and we look forward to exploring exponential opportunities with them.”
Apis Partners co-founder and managing partner Matteo Stefanel stated that his firm continues to see significant opportunity in African payments as strong secular trends unrelated to annual business cycles, such as the conversion from cash to digital and in-store to online payments, persist across key markets.
“We have been impressed by the management team’s vision and execution as Peach Payments capitalizes on these trends to bring more end-users into the digital economy, which is an important part of our drive to democratize access across the continent.” “We are excited to work with Peach Payments to help it expand into new markets with innovative merchant solutions,” he said.
