Littlefish, a South Africa-based fintech infrastructure company, has raised $9.5 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Partech to expand its merchant services platform for banks across Africa..
TLCOM, Flourish Ventures and Proparco also participated in the funding round announced on Tuesday. The company said the investment will support plans to scale its operations, expand into new African markets and strengthen its technology platform for financial institutions serving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Founded to help banks modernize their merchant services, Littlefish provides a merchant operating system that connects financial institutions to businesses through a unified digital infrastructure. The platform combines point-of-sale applications, back-office customer management systems, merchant portals, payment capabilities, and application programming interfaces (APIs) into an integrated system that can be embedded into POS devices and core banking platforms.
The company works with several major banks in South Africa, including Standard Bank, First National Bank (FNB) and Absa. It also maintains a partnership with global payments company Visa, which has incorporated the Littlefish platform into its small business onboarding strategy.
According to the company, its monthly recurring revenue has grown 30x since the seed funding round.
Chief executive officer and co-founder Brandon Roberts said the company's strategy is based on working with traditional financial institutions rather than bypassing them.
“We have proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and bring what we have built to millions of merchants across the continent,” Roberts said.
The new funding will enable Littlefish to expand its workforce, accelerate product development and enhance market penetration efforts. The company plans to deepen its presence in South Africa while expanding operations into more than 10 additional African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Matthew Marchand, principal at Partech, said the firm believes Littlefish is well-positioned to become a leading merchant infrastructure provider across Africa, citing the company’s partnerships with major financial institutions and its expansion plans.
Ameya Upadhyay, general partner at Flourish Ventures, whose firm also participated in the round, said the company has demonstrated strong traction since its seed investment and has built a platform that financial institutions are increasingly relying on.
Littlefish said the latest funding is an important step in its effort to strengthen the digital infrastructure that supports banks and the growing SME sector across the continent.