The archive · Money & Fintech · Strategic decision · 2012–2023
Peach Payments bets African commerce needs one payments layer; $31M Series A
Cape Town's Peach Payments built an online payments toolkit, expanded to Kenya and Mauritius, then raised $31M to be Africa's merchant infrastructure.
Peach Payments
What the business is
Online payment gateway and toolkit for African merchants: accept, manage and disburse payments via web and mobile across cards, electronic funds transfer, digital wallets, mobile money and BNPL.
Starting capital：US$31M (€29M) Series A from Apis Growth Fund II announced in April 2023, after earlier backing from UW Ventures, Launch Africa and AG Ventures.
How it started
Rahul Jain and Andreas Demleitner founded Peach Payments in Cape Town in 2012 to give local online merchants a proper payment gateway, expanding to Kenya in 2018 and Mauritius in 2021 as African digital commerce matured.
What happened
Peach's revenue rose more than 650% from 2020, including 80% growth in 2022, as merchants across retail, digital learning, fitness and financial services onboarded in almost every vertical. In April 2023 Apis Growth Fund II invested €29M (about $31M), a round subject to South African Competition Commission approval, which Apis said would deepen the product and fund expansion into more African markets.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
African merchants moving online found themselves stitching together card acquirers, wallets and banks, so Peach Payments, founded in Cape Town in 2012 by Rahul Jain and Andreas Demleitner, bet they would rather plug into one infrastructure layer. It built a toolkit to accept, manage and disburse payments across web and mobile, adding electronic funds transfer, wallets, mobile money and BNPL as local habits demanded.
The strategy compounded across markets: Peach expanded to Kenya in 2018 and Mauritius in 2021, and its revenue grew more than 650% from 2020, with an 80% increase in 2022 alone, as merchants from retail to digital learning and financial services came online.
In April 2023, UK-based asset manager Apis Partners invested €29M (about $31M) through Apis Growth Fund II, subject to South African regulatory approval, to fund new African markets and deepen the merchant product. Apis described Peach as one of Africa's most exciting high-growth businesses positioned on the continent's cash-to-digital and offline-to-online shifts.
Peach's bet is that payments infrastructure, not consumer apps, is where African digital commerce builds its base.
What has to be true
- The customer was the merchant, not the bank: a single toolkit for acceptance, pay-outs and subscriptions matched how African businesses actually sell.
- Payment diversity was a feature: supporting EFT, wallets, mobile money and BNPL let merchants accept whatever their customers preferred.
- Expansion followed adoption: Kenya in 2018 and Mauritius in 2021 preceded the 650% revenue growth that attracted Apis.
- The investor thesis was secular: cash-to-digital and offline-to-online trends were not tied to annual business cycles.
What can be applied
Sell the infrastructure under someone else's growth: Peach rode Africa's cash-to-digital shift by making it easy for merchants to accept whatever payment method their customers prefer.
Aftermath
As of April 2023 Peach Payments was scaling as South Africa's second-largest online payment gateway with offices and operations spanning South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius, and planned to use the Apis capital to enter further African markets and extend its infrastructure for merchants.
Sources
- SA fintech startup Peach Payments raises $31m Series A funding round
- London VC backs $31M funding of South Africa fintech startup Peach Payments
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