International calling app Talk360 has secured $4 million (~R64 million) in funding as it prepares to launch a new pan-African payment platform in the coming months.

The seed round of funding was led by African venture capital investor HAVAÍC, 4Di Capital and several fintech angel investors.

While the Talk360 app is seeing rapid growth on the continent, the company says accessibility has been an issue for an estimated 2 million people that use its services across Africa.

This as users either don’t have access to online banking to buy Talk360 airtime, or their local currencies or payment methods are simply not supported.

“The new payment platform aims to address the continued issue of inaccessibility by providing users with the option to buy products and services using any currency and more than 160 payment methods. It will also be opened to other service providers,” it highlighted in a press release sent to Hypertext. 

“We now have enough traction to attract internationally renowned investors to expand our footprint and allow other companies to use our unique single checkout payment platform for all of Africa,” notes co-founder Dean Hiine (pictured above).

At the time of writing, no precise information regarding the payment platform has been publicly disclosed, but there are plans in place for it to be launched in mid-2022.

Along with launching the payment platform, Talk360 aims to accelerate job creation and tackle unemployment in the communities which it serves through its rapidly growing agent network.

“From the start, our mission was to bridge distance and connect lives by offering reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use digital services, delivered in a localised manner to all communities, particularly emerging countries, so they can connect to the world,” concludes Hiine.

It will be interesting to see what the coming months hold for Talk360 following this recent round of funding.