[South Africa] Peach Payments secures $31m Series A funding round

South African fintech startup Peach Payments has raised a US$31 million Series A funding round from Apis Partners to accelerate its growth across the continent and grow its product offering.

Founded in Cape Town in 2012, Peach Payments provides a complete toolkit to help businesses accept, manage and disburse payments through web and mobile. It is the second largest online payment gateway in South Africa, and has also expanded to Kenya and Mauritius.

The startup has experienced exceptional growth in recent years, with revenue increasing more than 650 per cent since 2020, and 80 per cent in 2022 alone, and it is now planning further expansion after raising US$31 million in Series A funding. The investment came from Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners, a UK-based asset manager.

Completion of the investment is subject to the approval of the Competition Commission of South Africa and customary procedural and closing conditions. Peach Payments’ existing investors include UW Ventures, Launch Africa and AG Ventures.

The company intends to use the investment to accelerate its expansion across new African markets, to deepen its product offering, and to reinforce its core merchant value proposition. Apis Partners will leverage its networks and experience in scaling leading payment companies to support Peach Payments’ growth and geographic expansion.

“At Peach Payments, our mission is to enable African businesses and entrepreneurs to succeed in digital commerce. We want to be the infrastructure layer they build their business on. This was our original vision when we started, and is more relevant today than ever,” said Rahul Jain, co-founder and CEO of Peach Payments. 

“We’ve witnessed incredible growth in the past three years driven by fundamental forces and shifts in consumer and business adoption of digital commerce. Across market segments – from retail to digital learning, fitness, and even traditional financial services – we’ve onboarded new clients in almost every vertical. We’ve built a very strong team with exceptional operators and I am excited to partner with the team at Apis and take this business to where it deserves to be. The Apis team brings an incredible wealth of experience in fintech across the globe and we look forward to exploring exponential opportunities together with them.”

Matteo Stefanel, co-founder and managing partner at Apis Partners, said his firm continued to see significant opportunity in African payments as strong secular trends that are not related 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 vision and execution of the management team as Peach Payments capitalises on these trends to bring more end-users into the digital economy, a key part of our drive to democratise access across the continent. We look forward to partnering with Peach Payments to expand its reach into new markets with innovative merchant solutions,” he said.

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