Nigerian payments company, Paystack has raised US$1.3 million in a seed funding round from local and international investors to grow its sales and marketing operations.
Founded in 2015, the Y Combinator-backed company is on mission to solve the Olumo Rock-sized challenge of online payment transactions in Nigeria.
It allows businesses, both big and small, to accept payments via credit card, debit card, and direct bank transfer on web and mobile from anywhere around the world.
They can receive live payments from customers within 30 minutes of integration, and the product allows for recurring billing, thanks to its PCI-Compliant one-click and subscription payments infrastructure.
“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. We know Africa’s digital economy has potential, many billions of dollars of potential, we simply need to unlock it and make businesses work better, faster and more effectively. Paystack will do this,” said Shola Akinlade, Paystack CEO.
Asides growing its sales and marketing operations, Paystack will use the funds to build out its engineering team in Lagos, and accelerate product development and customer onboarding.
It will officially launch its service in Nigeria, partnering iROKOtv, Jobberman, Payporte, and Hotels.ng, to facilitate fast, safe payments. Other countries will get the service at a later time.
Leading the investment is Tencent, Comcast Ventures and Singularity Investments, with participation from Spark, M&S Partners, Tokyo Founders Fund, Blue Rinc Capital, Pave Investments, and KIBS-CFY Partners.
YC President, Michael Siebel, Justin Kan, Olumide Soyombo, Leonard Stiegeler and a number of angel investors also participated.
“Thanks to the backing from our investors with today’s announcement, and our time spent with Y Combinator, we are now in the strongest position yet to resolve the disconnect between African businesses and accepting payments,” Akinlade added.
This funding round is coming few weeks after Paystack announced the launch of an integrated payment solution for Nigerian merchants on Shopify.
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