Jonatan Allback and Roderick Simons, co-founders of NjiaPay. Image Credits: NjiaPay
South African fintech startup, NjiaPay, has raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding to create an integrated payment solution for the country’s population. The funding round, originally meant to be capped at $1 million, saw involvement from venture capital firms like HAVAIC, Renew Capital, and several angel investors, most of which are from Europe and Africa, according to the CEO of NjiaPay, Jonatan Allback.
NjiaPay is a relatively young startup. It was founded in 2024 as a brainchild of Jonatan Allback, who has spent 15 years in the payments sector, including over eight years at the Dutch payment giant Adyen, and Roderick Simons, Chief Product and Technology Officer. The startup was founded with a mission to simplify online payments for African businesses. The founder and CEO describes the company as a payments-as-a-service company, whose “core offering is to help African businesses simplify and streamline their online payments by providing them with a single, seamless integration — one point of contact for all their needs.”
“We understand the pain points of dealing with six different payment service providers across Africa, the challenges of maintaining all those integrations, navigating various merchant PSP portals, and reconciling data from six different settlement reports. This direct experience is a key reason why we built NjiaPay. Our deep knowledge of the payments landscape is a crucial differentiating factor,” Allback said.
NjiaPay focuses on serving small and medium-sized enterprises, instead of large businesses, in what comes off as a strategic decision. Allback says that the demand for integration is greater with this target group compared to large corporations. Additionally, focusing on the small guys in the South African business space means less competition for NjiaPay. It also serves as a mechanism for differentiation.
At the moment, the startup has a foothold in Nigeria, Kenya, and its primary market, South Africa, which Allback calls a “very mature market”. This capital injection will help NjiaPay accelerate its plans for expansion, product development, and formation of business partnerships. The company currently has a team in South Africa, with its engineering team located elsewhere, the plan is to “expand the team” following the seed round, aligning with their primary customer base.
“This year, our focus is on expanding the features and functionality of our platform and potentially adding one or two partnerships that align with our goal of helping online businesses grow,” Allback stated.
