South African fintech Yoco has secured a $100 million credit facility from Chicago-based Victory Park Capital to fund Yoco Capital, its merchant cash advance product. Yoco announced the facility on 9 November 2026.
Yoco Capital gives working-capital advances to merchants who already take payments through Yoco. According to the company’s announcement, eligible merchants see pre-approved offers in the Yoco app, based on their live sales data across in-person and online payments. No collateral is required, and advances range from R2,000 to R1.5 million. Repayments come out automatically as small deductions from the day’s takings, rather than as fixed monthly instalments.
Until now, Yoco has advanced this capital in partnership with dedicated SME credit providers. The company says it has disbursed more than R6.5 billion to over 40,000 merchants since 2018 through those partnerships. According to the company, the new facility gives Yoco direct control over that financing layer, including pricing and risk on its own book. Yoco also says it will keep working with funding providers where that is the right structure for a product or market.
“Financing was the one layer we didn’t fully control. This facility changes that,” said Carsten Holtkemeyer, Yoco’s chief executive, in the announcement.
Victory Park Capital is a private credit and asset-backed finance firm. Its senior partner, Jason Brown, said the firm backs Yoco’s aim of widening access to flexible financing for South African entrepreneurs.
What the $100 million does and does not show
The $100 million is the size of the facility. The announcement does not say how much has been drawn, what the pricing or repayment terms are, or how long the facility runs. It is debt financing, not an equity round.
Yoco calls it one of the largest dedicated merchant cash advance raises in Africa. The company also says it has not recorded an unprofitable lending cohort since it began advancing capital in 2018, including during Covid-19. TechCabal noted that the announcement did not include cohort-level performance figures, default rates or write-offs. Those claims come from the company and have not been independently verified.
The market gap Yoco is pointing to
The announcement cites the 2025 FinFind and African Bank SA MSME Access to Finance Report, which puts South Africa’s small-business financing gap at about R350 billion. The same report, as Yoco cites it, says small and medium-sized enterprises receive 13% of national bank lending, against 51% for large corporations.
Yoco argues that payment records show how a business is trading in real time, which a bank statement or credit report cannot. That is the basis for its pre-approval model. The company plans to extend Yoco Capital to more of its more than 200,000 merchants across retail, hospitality and services. Whether that growth holds up under its own lending model is the next thing to watch.
Sources
TopicsYoco South Africa Merchant Cash Advance Private Credit
