South African startup TallOrder, a developer of advanced cloud-based point of sale (POS) solutions for the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market, has raised ZAR47 million (US$3.1 million) in additional Series A funding to accelerate growth and product development.
Launched in 2014, the TallOrder POS platform, which can be deployed on suitable Windows, iOS and Android-based devices, offers integration with popular payment platforms such as SnapScan, Zapper, MasterPass, Yoco, ThumbzUp, MTN MoMo, Innervation, African Resonance, NetCash, DPO and PayFast.
In Africa, TallOrder can be deployed by retailers, service companies and hospitality businesses, with the cloud-based solution ideal for SMEs who typically have less IT skills on board and may not have the time or resources needed to deal with internet security, on- and offsite backups, disaster recovery, as well as keeping the software, databases and integrations up to date. For the international market, TallOrder has developed an offering for the hotel and guest house market.
The startup has installations across many business types in South Africa, African markets including Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and the Seychelles, and in Asian markets such as Indonesia, and now plans further growth after raising additional Series A funding. The cash injection takes the total funds raised by TallOrder to ZAR80 million (US$5.3 million).
The investment came from existing investors, including Investec Private Capital, as well as a consortium led by Africa-focused fintech investment firm Nurture Investment Management. Nurture’s consortium consists of family offices and high net worth individuals, including Valentine Chitalu, an experienced pan-African investor.
“Developing a robust, feature-rich and widely adaptable cloud POS solution takes a lot of development effort, both in terms of money and time. Investors have been keen to invest in the next generation of cloud-based point of sale systems, as the global market is vast and the growth opportunities massive” said Dana Buys, CEO and co-founder of TallOrder.
He said the startup’s focus would now move to rapidly growing its local and global customer base.
“We are pleased to make this significant investment into what we believe is a category-defining software-as-a-service company alongside Dana and the existing shareholders. We look forward to supporting the African — and ultimately global — expansion of TallOrder over the next few years,” said Nurture’s co-founder and managing partner Tatenda Mutizwa.
