Olufemi Adeyemi
While there has been growth in digital payments across Africa, most businesses still have access to generic point-of-sale machines to support the collection of payments. These machines also typically work in isolation from the rest of the business operations, leading to a variety of inefficiencies in their business processes.
Nomba, a payment service provider for African businesses, has raised a $30 million Pre-Series B funding round to support the delivery of bespoke payment solutions for African businesses.The oversubscribed equity funding round was led by San
Francisco-based Base10 Partners (investors in Nubank, Plaid, and Brex), with
participation from Helios Digital Ventures, Shopify, Partech, and Khosla
Ventures.
According to Yinka Adewale, CEO and co-founder of Nomba, “We
see payment as a business model, not just a product and we want to make it
easier for businesses to take advantage of all that is possible in their
payment processes to support their continued growth and success.
“We have a long list of products we have been working on and
the funds we have raised as well as the investors that have backed us gives us
a lot of confidence about what can be achieved with more effective payment
solutions in the hands of business owners,” he said.
Despite the growth in digital payments across Africa, most
businesses still only have access to generic point-of-sale machines to support
the collection of payments.
These machines also typically work in isolation from the
rest of the business operations, leading to a variety of inefficiencies in
their business processes.
The company stated that with the new funding, Nomba will
deliver payment solutions that have been designed for the specific services
that businesses provide, enabling them to plug gaps in their payment processes,
operate more efficiently and deliver excellent customer experiences.
For example, restaurants will be able to access menus,
manage inventory, receive payments, and perform other business functions all
from the same hardware. For transport and logistics companies, Nomba’s
solutions will enable them to directly connect their transactions to payments,
creating a more seamless experience that increases sales and profitability.
Starting in Nigeria, Nomba will also deliver a range of
business tools, including invoicing and order management solutions to improve
efficiency and reduce the cost of operations for businesses across the
continent.
Launched in 2016 as “Kudi.ai”, a chatbot integration that
responds to financial requests on social apps, Nomba has evolved over the years
into a profitable, omnichannel payment service provider.
The company supports more than 300,000 businesses with a
wide range of payment solutions, as well as management and banking tools that
enable better business processes and support business owners to be better at
doing business. The company processes $1 billion in monthly transactions, which
represents a market-leading gross transaction value (GTV) for a payment service
provider in Africa.
Before this funding round, Nomba had only previously raised
$5 million in funding, leveraging those funds to successfully grow the business
and efficiently deliver solutions that have positively impacted hundreds of
thousands of businesses across Nigeria. This new capital will enable the
company to deliver more solutions for businesses in Nigeria, across Africa, and
in other markets, as the opportunities may emerge.
Luci Fonseca, Partner at Base10 said, “Nomba’s track record
of innovation and capital efficiency makes it one of the most exciting startups
in Africa. We are thrilled to be supporting them to deliver their game-changing
solutions to power growth and continued success for businesses in Nigeria and
beyond.”
The Nigerian payment service provider, formerly Kudi changes
name to Nomba to make financial services affordable. The company stated that it
currently processes over $16 million in payments daily across more than 500,000
transactions, with a rate of over 10,000 new businesses monthly.