FUNDING | South African Payments Infrastructure Fintech, Stitch, Raises $55 Million in Series B Round to Boost Product Catalogue

South African payments infrastructure startup, Stitch, has secured $55 million in a Series B funding round. This brings its total capital raised to $107 million in under four years.

The new funds will support the expansion of its in-person payment solutions, enhance its online payments platform, and help the company venture into card acquiring.

The round was led by:

* QED Investors

with additional backing from

• Norrsken22
• Flourish Ventures, and
• Glynn Capital.
• Angel investors, including comedian Trevor Noah, also took part.

Returning investors such as:

• Ribbit Capital, which led its $25 million series A extension in 2023,
• PayPal Ventures
• FirstMinute Capital, and
• The Raba Partnership

joined the round as well.

“This funding round is focused on our next phase of growth to expand our in-person payments launched with acquisition of ExiPay earlier this year, and also (to) bolster our online payments suite to better serve enterprise merchants across all payments needs,” the company said.

Stitch also plans to use the funding to expand into card payment acceptance, both online and at physical locations. A company representative explained that by becoming a direct card acquirer, Stitch can handle transactions without depending on banks. This move will enable the company to offer a fully integrated card payment solution, streamline the payment process by cutting out intermediaries, and ultimately reduce costs for clients.

The funding will also be used to strengthen Stitch’s infrastructure for facilitating money movement, including building out payment processing networks and enhancing payment methods, processing capabilities, and overall service quality.

“The key is seamless switching between these sources. We need to automatically detect failures and switch to backups, ensuring uninterrupted service. This requires maintaining all these alternatives and having the systems and teams to manage the transitions quickly,” said the company representative.

Stitch counts several major South African enterprises among its clients, including:

• TakeALot
• Mr. D
• MTN
• VodaCom
• MultiChoice
• Standard Bank’s Shyft, TFG’s Bash
• Hollywoodbets
• Luno, and
• The Courier Guy

among others.

As reported by BitKE in 2023, Stitch unveiled a new payment option called ‘Pay with crypto’ enabling customers to make direct payments using their cryptocurrency wallets.

This development came against the backdrop of the increasing popularity of cryptocurrency in the local market, where reports indicated then that approximately 7.7 million South Africans possessed cryptocurrency.

Stitch, which raised $25 million in a Series A extension in 2023 and also launched WigWag, a social commerce payment platform for small businesses, offers an application programming interface (API) for businesses to receive payments online. The company operates from offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa, as well as Lagos, Nigeria.

The newly raised funding will enable the company to enhance its services and better support these clients.

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