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Nigerian fintech startup secures R18.1m in investment from Tencent and others

The Nigerian fintech startup, Paystack has announced that it has closed $1.3 million in seed investment from the likes of Tencent, Comcast Ventures and Singularity Investments among others.

The startup seeks to give online merchants an agnostic payment platform that supports debit cards, credit cards and direct bank transfer payments.

“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 & hospitality, financial services or entertainment,” Paystack chief executive officer Shola Akinlade said.

Paystack co-founders Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi.

The additional investment Paystack has secured along with existing backing from the Y-Combinator seed accelerator will hopefully allow the startup to help more merchants facilitate payments.

To start the service will launch in Nigeria where the country sees 6 million new users joining the internet everyday before moving into other countries on the African continent.

“Paystack is addressing a massive market, helping businesses accept payments online in less than 30 minutes from sign-up,” Comcast Ventures associate, Christian Ebersol said of Paystack. “We look forward to supporting this talented team as they streamline the payment process between merchants and consumers.”

While the firm is sitting pretty on a sizeable investment figure it isn’t resting having already secured partnerships with iROKOtv, Jobberman, Hotels.ng and other big name internet firms in Nigeria. Developers are also jumping at the chance to work with Paystack with over 30 developers having created plugins and tools for the service already.

We would like to extend a warm congratulations to Paystack for securing this funding and we look forward to seeing the platform grow and eventually spread to other parts of the continent.

[Image – CC BY 2.0 Robbert Noordzij]

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