South African-based application programming interface (API) start-up Stitch has raised $21 million (R316 million) funding.
The Series A funding round was led by The Spruce House Partnership for the start-up to continue building the future of money movement in Africa.
Participating investors include PayPal Ventures, TrueLayer, Firstminute Capital, The Raba Partnership, CRE Venture Capital, Village Global, Zinal Growth (the investment vehicle of Checkout.com founder Guillaume Pousaz) and others, including founders of Chipper Cash, Quovo and Unit.
Stitch says it will use the funding to continue building the future of money movement by linking bank accounts, wallets and other stores of value.
Stitch launched in February 2021 and has offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, and Lagos, Nigeria.
The fintech company enables businesses to more quickly and easily build, optimise and scale financial products across Africa.
It offers data and payments solutions that reduce the effort required for businesses to connect to their users’ financial accounts and enable bank-to-bank payments without leaving the existing app interface.
Stitch’s infrastructure-led approach supports a number of use cases, including customer onboarding, personal and business financial management, lending, wallet top-ups and payouts, and e-commerce checkouts.
In November last year, it announced a $2 million (R30 million) seed extension with participation from global fintech entrepreneurs – bringing its total seed funding to $6 million (R90 million) at the time.
The company said this came eight months after the team emerged from stealth and announced an initial $4 million (R60 million) seed round.
In February last year, Stitch said its seed round had an investor line-up that included the founders of Venmo, Klarna and Flutterwave, and the founding team from Plaid and Revolut.
Commenting on the latest funding, Robel Chiappini, principal at CRE Venture Capital, says: “Where value is stored, how it’s expressed, and the protocols that enable its transmission are undergoing a generational transition.
“Nowhere is that transition felt more acutely than in our markets, where the gaps in traditional financial services continue to frustrate both developers and end-users. The Stitch team has done a tremendous job of creating community amongst its users, customers, partners and investors. We’re excited to see how that connective tissue will compound over time to sow the financial infrastructure that will power the storers, services and use cases of the future.”
Says Ashish Aggarwal, director at PayPal Ventures: “Stitch is building critical infrastructure to enable faster, easier and more secure payments across Africa.
“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.”
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