Amidst the growth in Africa’s digital payments ecosystem, 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.
Since launching 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.
To double down on its efforts, Nomba (formerly Kudi) has secured $30 million in a pre-Series B round led by San Francisco-based Base10 Partners (investors in Nubank, Plaid, and Brex). Helios Digital Ventures, Shopify, Partech, and Khosla Ventures participated.
“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,” Yinka Adewale, CEO and co-founder of Nomba. “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.”
According to a statement shared with Benjamindada.com, this new investment will enable Nomba to 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”.
Through these solutions, restaurants will be able to access menus, manage inventory, receive payments, and perform other business functions all from the same hardware. Transport and logistics companies will also be able to directly connect their transactions to payments, creating a more seamless experience that increases sales and profitability.
Starting in Nigeria (then the rest of Africa), 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.
“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 in delivering their game-changing solutions to power growth and continued success for businesses in Nigeria and beyond,” Luci Fonseca, Partner at Base10, added.
