Paystack, the Nigerian payments company which powers businesses with its payment API has announced that it has expanded its operations to South Africa.
Founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, Paystack helps businesses in Africa get paid by anyone, anywhere in the world. The company was actively present in Nigeria and Ghana before expanding to South Africa.
In 2018, Paystack raised an $8 million series A round led by Stripe. The funding was used for its Ghana expansion. Since expanding to Ghana, Paystack has grown and claims to power 50% of all online payments in Nigeria with around 60,000 customers, including small businesses, larger corporates, fintech, educational institutions, and online betting companies.
The company was later acquired by Stripe for $200M in 2020 for its African expansion. According to Tech Crunch, Paystack south African expansion began with a six-month pilot phase that likely started a month after Stripe’s acquisition. During this phase, the company has worked with different businesses and has grown a local team to handle on-the-ground operations.
What they are saying
Shola Akinlade, Paystack CEO said, “South Africa is one of the continent’s most important markets, and our launch here is a significant milestone in our mission to accelerate commerce across Africa. We’re excited to continue building the financial infrastructure that empowers ambitious businesses in Africa, helps them scale and connects them to global markets.”
Khadijah Abu, head of product expansion, added that “for many businesses in South Africa, we know that accepting payments online can be cumbersome. Our pilot in South Africa was hyper-focused on removing barriers to entry, eliminating tedious paperwork, providing world-class API documentation to developers, and making it a lot simpler for businesses to accept payments online.”