Paystack Raises $8m Series A Funding from Stripe, Visa, Tencent And Other Angel Investors

Following it’s major $1.3m funding in 2016, the Nigerian based Fintech company, Paystack has raised $8 million Series A funding from international fintech company, Stripe, Visa, and Tencent. This fund will energize Paystack’s expansion, building of payments infrastructure, and growth of their engineering team.

The series A round fund was led by, Stripe, Visa, Tencent, Y Combinator, as well as angel investors Tom Stafford (Managing Partner at DST Global), Gbenga Oyebode; founding partner of Aluko & Oyebode and Board member of MTN Nigeria), and Dale Mathias; Co-founder, Innovation Partners Africa.

According to Shola Akinlade, CEO and co-founder of Paystack, “as Paystack looks to expand rapidly across the continent, we’re thrilled to have the benefit of the deep experience of Stripe, Visa, and Tencent. Our ambition is to give African merchants the tools and services they need to go toe-to-toe with the best businesses in the world and win.”

“The Paystack founders are highly technical, fanatically customer oriented, and unrelentingly impatient” … “We’re excited to back such people in one of the world’s fastest-growing regions,” Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe said.

Otto Williams, head for strategic partnerships, fintechs and ventures for Visa in Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) maintained that “Africa is central to Visa’s long-term growth strategy, especially when you consider how cash is still a primary payment option for millions on the continent.”

“Our investment in Paystack aligns with the kind of investments we look for – those that will help extend our reach into the global commerce ecosystem as it changes and grows, and that will provide mutually beneficial business opportunities.” Williams said.

Paystack provides APIs to help developers quickly build modern payments experiences online. With only a few lines of code, developers can create custom checkout experiences, build automated recurring billing systems for subscription products, instantly send bulk transfers to any bank account in Nigeria, verify the identity of customers through five different verification APIs, and much more.

Customers can pay with local and international cards, or directly from their bank accounts. Paystack also supports localized payment channels, including mobile money, QR code, and USSD payments.