South African-based API fintech company, Stitch, has joined the list of African companies raising funds, and scaling their businesses.
Stitch has recently concluded its series A fundraising round, raising US$21 million from series of investors.
Speaking on the plans for the funds raised, Stitch co-founder and CEO, Kiaan Pillay, noted that the funds will be used to significantly scale the Stitch team, launch new product to the public, and expand into new markets across the continent.
Stitch was co-founded by Kiaan Pillay, Natalie Cuthbert and Priyen Pillay, Stitch wants to provide full API access to financial accounts across Africa.
“We are incredibly fortunate to be supported by some of the best investors, founders and builders in the fintech space globally. They are working closely with us to enable the boom we’re seeing in financial technology on the continent. Across the hundreds of customers we work with, big and small, we’re witnessing a record pace of development of new financial products. Our goal is to help fast-growing fintech and embedded finance companies more easily launch increasingly innovative and tailored products, expand into new markets and optimise their solutions – so they can grow even faster,” Kiaan Pillay said.
The fundraise had participations from Spruce House Partnership, which led the fundraise. Further participations came from investors like PayPal Ventures, TrueLayer, firstminute capital, The Raba Partnership, CRE Venture Capital, Village Global. TrueLayer, founders of Chipper Cash, Quovo and Unit, and Guillaume Pousaz’s Zinal Growth, also participated in the fundraise.
Speaking on the fundraise, Ben Stein, co-founder of The Spruce House Partnership, said:
“We have been following startups in Africa for many years. Our diligence was very clear that this is one of the most talented teams on the continent, and we are excited to be a part of what they are building at Stitch.”
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Stitch’s API works by allowing developers to connect apps to financial accounts within minutes. By so, their users are able to share transaction histories and balances, confirm their identities, and initiate payments.
Stitch started operating its payment products in South Africa in April, 2021, and recorded a 50% month-on-month growth in payments volume after six months.
Thereafter, the startup expanded its operations to Nigeria and, at the time, was on track to facilitate $10 million in monthly payments by December.
“We’re proud of the partners and customers we have here as we continue to deepen the payments product and look at monthly and recurring payments, which are interesting feature sets for us. We recently had a few customers go live in Nigeria, which has been very exciting for us. We just offer payments there but are eager to deepen the products. We will look at adding data and identity this year, as well as deepening the payments set similarly to how we have it in South Africa,” Pillay said.
PayPal Ventures’ director, Ashish Aggarwal, also commented on the partnership with Stitch, he said:
“We believe they will play a significant role in contributing to the overall growth of the fintech space in Africa – and are excited to be investing at this important moment in their journey.”