Nigerian fintech startup Paystack has closed a US$1.3 million seed investment round, with participation from numerous international investors.
Launched in 2015, and an alumnus of the Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator, Paystack last month launched a payment solution for global e-commerce platform Shopify, aimed at opening up the e-commerce market for thousands of Nigerian online retailers.
Merchants who sign up for Paystack can receive live – platform agnostic – payments from customers within 30 minutes of integration. The product allows for recurring billing, thanks to its PCI-Compliant one-click and subscription payments infrastructure.
The startup today announced the close of its seed round at US$1.3 million from international investors Tencent, Comcast Ventures and Singularity Investments.
The round also sees participation by Spark, M&S Partners, Tokyo Founders Fund, Blue Rinc Capital, Pave Investments, KIBS-CFY Partners, Michael Siebel, Justin Kan, Olumide Soyombo, Leonard Stiegeler, and a number of angels.
The investment will be used to build out Paystack’s engineering team in Lagos, as well grow its sales and marketing operations, to accelerate product development and customer onboarding.
“Having painstakingly identified the many barriers that merchants on the continent have when it comes to online payments, we have built and refined a product for Africa that we hope will act as a catalyst for the continent’s online economy, be it on-demand services, ecommerce, travel and hospitality, financial services or entertainment,” says Paystack’s chief executive officer (CEO), Shola Akinlade.
“We know Africa’s digital economy has potential, many billions of dollars of potential, we simply need to unlock it and make businesses work better, faster and more effectively. Paystack will do this.”
Paystack is rolling out its service in Nigeria, with plans to thereafter expand across the continent.
“Thanks to the backing from our investors with today’s announcement, and our time spent with Y Combinator, we are now in the strongest position yet to resolve the disconnect between African businesses and accepting payments,” Akinlade says.
