The Johannesburg fintech quietly powering merchant services for Africa’s tier-one banks just closed a $9.5m Series A
- The Johannesburg fintech quietly powering merchant services for Africa’s tier-one banks just closed a $9.5m Series A Johannesburg-based littlefish has closed...
- Working with banks, not against them The South African fintech operates a merchant operating system that sits between banks and small...
- That model has attracted some serious names.
- Since its seed round, monthly recurring revenue has grown 30x.
Keep reading for the full breakdown on African Fintech — everything you need to know is covered below.
Johannesburg-based littlefish has closed a $9.5 million Series A round to expand its merchant infrastructure platform across Africa, with Partech leading the raise alongside TLCOM, Flourish Ventures, and Proparco.
Working with banks, not against them
The South African fintech operates a merchant operating system that sits between banks and small businesses, consolidating point-of-sale applications, back-office CRMs, merchant portals, payments, and APIs into a single orchestration layer that plugs directly into POS devices and core banking systems. Rather than competing with banks, littlefish works with them, giving Africa’s biggest financial institutions the tools to deliver fintech-grade merchant services without losing ownership of the merchant relationship.
That model has attracted some serious names. Its clients include Standard Bank, First National Bank, and Absa, three of the continent’s most powerful tier-one institutions.
Visa has also embedded littlefish’s platform into its small-business onboarding strategy, one of the strongest signals yet of the company’s infrastructure credibility. Since its seed round, monthly recurring revenue has grown 30x.
What the $9.5m unlocks
“This raise is a validation of our belief that the best way to serve Africa’s small businesses is to work with the institutions they already trust, not around them,” said Brandon Roberts, Co-Founder and CEO of littlefish.
“We’ve proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and bring what we’ve built to millions more merchants across the continent. The little guys deserve world-class financial infrastructure, too, and we’re building it.”
The fresh capital will go towards growing the littlefish team, accelerating product development, and scaling into more than 10 new African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
Lead investor Partech described littlefish as having built infrastructure that Africa’s most powerful financial institutions have staked their merchant businesses on.
Flourish Ventures, which backed the company at the seed stage, also returned for the Series A, with General Partner Ameya Upadhyay citing the company’s traction and institutional trust as reasons the decision was easy.
With $9.5 million secured and expansion into over 10 markets on the horizon, littlefish is making a clear case that the future of merchant infrastructure in Africa runs through the banks and through them.