Apis Growth Fund II, a private equity fund managed by Apis Partners LLP, a UK-based asset manager, announced on April 4, 2023, that it is considering investing €29 million (US$31 million) in Baobab Payments GmbH (trading as Peach Payments), a fast-growing digital payment service provider that allows online payments in Africa.
The conclusion of the investment is reliant on gaining clearance from the South African Competition Commission as well as meeting the regular procedural and closing criteria.
Peach Payments has already received investments from UW Ventures, Launch Africa, and AG Ventures.
Apis Partners invests in early-stage companies in the financial services and financial infrastructure sectors.
Peach Payments is South Africa’s second-largest online payment gateway.
The company also operates in Kenya and Mauritius, and it employs approximately 150 foreign specialists throughout its many locations.
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How Peach Payments has been Operating
Peach Payments has seen extraordinary growth in recent years, with revenue increasing by more than 650% since 2020 – and by 80% in 2022 alone. This growth is attributable to the company’s focus on innovation and customer service.
The corporation has every intention of putting the investment made by the Fund to use in order to hasten its expansion across new African markets, to broaden its product offering, and bolster its fundamental merchant value proposition.
Merchants choose Peach Payments because of its reputation for providing enterprise-grade products, high end-user conversion, best-in-class risk management, and actionable data, all of which are backed by the greatest customer service experience available on the continent.
Peach Payments’ growth and regional expansion will be supported by Apis Partners, who will draw on their extensive network of contacts and their one-of-a-kind experience in scaling top payment fi
Peach Payments will be able to maximise financial inclusion with the assistance of Apis Partners’ sector experience because Apis Partners is a native investor in the ESGI. This will allow a greater number of merchants to participate and grow in today’s increasingly digital global economy.
Executives’ Words on Peach Payments
According to Matteo Stefanel, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Apis Partners, “We continue to see significant opportunities in African payments as strong secular trends that are not related to annual business cycles – such as the conversion from cash to digital and in-store to online payments – persist across key markets.”
“We have been impressed by the vision and execution of the management team as Peach Payments capitalises on these trends to bring more end-users into the digital economy, a key part of our drive to democratise access across the continent. We look forward to partnering with Peach Payments to expand its reach into new markets with innovative merchant solutions,” the Co-Founder added.
Udayan Goyal, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Apis Partners, “Peach Payments, one of Africa’s most exciting high-growth businesses with a relentless focus on technology and operational leadership, is at the forefront of enabling next-generation payments for merchants across the continent. We are excited to partner with Peach Payments’ fantastic team and look forward to leveraging Apis’ capital, expertise and global network to support new investment in Peach Payments’ infrastructure, products and people to consolidate the company’s recent gains and support the next phase of growth.”
The founder and current CEO of Peach Payments, Rahul Jain, made this statement, “At Peach Payments, our mission is to enable African businesses and entrepreneurs to develop and succeed in digital commerce. We want to be the infrastructure layer on which they build their business.
This was the original vision with which we started and is more relevant today than it has ever been. We’ve witnessed incredible growth in the past three years driven by fundamental forces and shifts in consumer and business adoption of digital commerce.”
“Across market segments – from retail to digital learning, fitness, and even traditional financial services – we’ve onboarded new clients in almost every vertical. We’ve built a very strong team with exceptional operators and I am excited to partner with the team at Apis and take this business to where it deserves to be. The Apis team brings an incredible wealth of experience in fintech across the globe and we look forward to exploring exponential opportunities together with them,” the CEO added.
Peach Payments is a payment gateway that was established in 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa by Rahul Jain and Andreas Demleitner. The company caters to local internet retailers. In 2018, it expanded to Kenya, and in 2021, it will expand to Mauritius.
Since the company’s inception, Peach Payments has had one primary objective: to become the online payment infrastructure provider that assists businesses in expanding their operations. To accomplish this objective, the company has placed equal emphasis on the consumers served by its merchants as it has on the merchants themselves.
The company offers a toolbox that enables retailers to accept mobile and online payments, as well as to monitor and make those payments.
The services that are provided include accepting payments online, making pay-outs (disbursements), and providing subscription solutions for a wide range of payment types. Some of the payment types that are accepted online include cards, electronic funds transfer, digital wallets, mobile money, and Buy Now Pay Later options.