Nigerian payments startup Paystack has raised a US$8 million Series A funding round from investors including Stripe and Visa as it plans to expand across Africa.
Launched in 2015, Paystack allows merchants to receive live, platform-agnostic payments, and allows for recurring billing.
The startup, which raised a US$1.3 million seed funding round in December 2016, has now secured US$8 million Series A investment in a round led by US-based payments firm Stripe, and also featuring Visa and Tencent. The Silicon Valley-based Y Combinator accelerator, of which Paystack is an alumnus, also took part.
Over the last two years, Paystack has developed five APIs that enable developers to create custom online checkout processes, build recurring billing systems, send bulk transfers to any Nigerian bank account, and verify customer identity. It processes almost 15 per cent of all online payments in Nigeria.
It will use the funding round to expand into further African markets, grow its infrastructure and increase the size of its engineering team, with chief executive officer (CEO) Shola Akinlade saying the startup was “thrilled” to be able to access the “deep experience” of Stripe, Visa and Tencent as it looked to expand rapidly across the continent.
Our ambition is to give African merchants the tools and services they need to go toe-to-toe with the best businesses in the world, and win,” he said.
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison said the Paystack founders were “highly technical, fanatically customer-oriented, and unrelentingly impatient”.
“We’re excited to back such people in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions,” he said.
The investment caps an impressive month of fundraising for Nigerian fintech startups, with Mines, Wallet.ng, Allpro and Thank U Cash also securing funding in August.
