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Stitch, has announced a $21 million Series A funding round, led by The Spruce House Partnership. The Application programming interfaces (API) fintech company will use the funding to continue building the future of money movement by linking bank accounts, wallets, and other stores of value, creating what it refers to as the ‘financial graph’
The South-African-based Stitch launched its Nigerian unit in 2021 and has gone live with several fintech companies in Nigeria since its launch. Currently, Nigeria boasts of more than 200 FinTech companies with 144 of them being startups as of 2021.
With the funding being used to significantly expand Stitch’s team, launch new product offerings and enter new markets across Africa, Nigerian may seem to benefit more as it has in fact, some of the highest amounts of fintech startups in Africa.
Its payments and data infrastructure enables stakeholders across the fintech ecosystem, which has previously been fragmented by technical, commercial, and political constraints, to transact smoothly, increase revenue and growth potential, and minimize conversion time and cost.
“We are incredibly fortunate to be supported by some of the best investors, founders, and builders in the fintech space globally,” said Stitch co-founder & CEO Kiaan Pillay. “They are working closely with us to enable the boom we’re seeing in financial technology on the continent,”
He stated that they are witnessing a record pace of development of new financial products across the hundreds of customers they work with.
Pillay further stated that the goal is to assist integrated finance companies in more readily launching, increasingly innovative and customized products, expanding into new markets, and optimizing their solutions in order to help them develop quicker.
The round is led by The Spruce House Partnership, with participation from PayPal Ventures, TrueLayer, first-minute 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
Businesses interested in using Stitch can use its Initiate secure bank transfers for one-click pay-ins and payouts, access standardized and categorized transaction history and balance data, for affordability checks and income estimation assessment, and Verify account information and ownership, to enable faster and more user-friendly digital onboarding, and to perform fraud checks.
Read also: Visa invites Nigerian Fintech Startups to global challenge
These services can be accessed through its self-service portal.
In 2021, African startups raised a record $4 billion, with FinTechs accounting for the great bulk (approximately 62 percent). Stitch services range from wallet-based startups like Chipper Cash, Luno, and Zapper to financial services providers like ImaliPay, subscription and e-commerce players like FlexClub, as well as PSPs and payment aggregators like Peach and Yoco.
“We have been following startups in Africa for many years. Our diligence was very clear that this is one of the most talented teams on the continent, and we are excited to be a part of what they are building at Stitch,” said Ben Stein, co-founder of The Spruce House Partnership.
The company had announced a $6 million seed round last year after it emerged from stealth in February 2021.
“Stitch is building critical infrastructure to enable faster, easier, and more secure payments across Africa,” said Ashish Aggarwal, Director at PayPal Ventures. “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,”
In the last quarter alone, the company saw 44 percent month-on-month (MoM) customer growth and a 72percent MoM increase in linked financial accounts on the platform. It’s had 104 percent MoM growth in payments value since launch.
