Jonatan Allback and Roderick Simons, co-founders of NjiaPay. Image Credits: NjiaPay
SA-based payments-as-a-service provider for African businesses, NjiaPay, has successfully completed its pre-seed funding round, raking in over $1 million at the end of it. Venture capital firm HAVAIC led the funding round, which attracted participation from angel investors like founders of Anyfin, Banxware, and Maxidrive.
NjiaPay was founded in late 2024 as a subsidiary of Talk360, an African-focused international calling app. The company hopes to democratize payment management for businesses operating across the continent, while addressing the inefficiencies with integrating multiple payment service providers.
NjiaPay’s platform operates and combines PSP’s and payment methods, offering business a single integration point for managing transactions. The company’s position is that several African businesses struggle with the technical and operational challenges of handling different payment systems, resulting in increased costs and operational issues. NjiaPay offers a solution that provides a unified checkout experience and an established merchant portal.
The platform uses intelligent routing to direct transactions, incorporates built-in redundancy for reliability, and offers features such as fraud protection. NjiaPay claims this approach ensures a smoother payment experience for merchants while providing centralised reporting and data management tools to streamline back-office functions like customer support and finance.
Rob Heath, a partner at HAVAÍC, mentioned the challenges faced by businesses in managing payments across Africa. “We have observed first-hand the challenges faced by our portfolio companies in managing payments across the African continent. The need to integrate with multiple PSPs can significantly impede their product development timelines. Streamlining payment operations is crucial for the growth of the African digital economy, and we believe that NjiaPay is well-positioned to address this critical need.”
Jonatan Allback, co-founder and CEO of NjiaPay, is of the opinion that the new funding be channeled into expanding the company’s team in both Amsterdam and Cape Town. “Our mission is to empower African businesses by simplifying the complexities of payments,” he commented. “By becoming their in-house payments experts, we enable them to focus on growth while we manage the operational and technical intricacies of their payments processing.”
Roderick Simons, co-founder and CPTO of NjiaPay, emphasised the platform’s technology. “NjiaPay is built on the latest cloud-based technology and leverages AI to select the optimal PSP for each transaction, driving higher conversion rates and minimising costs. Our platform also incorporates sophisticated fraud screening to safeguard businesses from losses.”
Hans Osnabrugge, founder of Talk360 and Chairman of the Board of NjiaPay, admitted that Talk360 had directly benefited from using NjiaPay’s solution. “At Talk360, we experienced first-hand the value of NjiaPay’s solution.By transitioning to NjiaPay, we freed up valuable engineering resources and achieved a 25% increase in conversion rates, translating to significant revenue growth.”
