Cardtonic raises $2.1 million to build Pil, its standalone business spend infrastructure

Cardtonic, a Nigerian fintech startup, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding to build Pil, an independent B2B card spend management platform, marking a clear shift from consumer fintech into infrastructure. 

The fintech says the round was funded entirely by angel investors, not venture capital firms or traditional institutions, after years of bootstrapping and operating from revenue.

Pil is Cardtonic’s first product built outside its consumer stack. While Cardtonic’s retail business serves individual users with virtual dollar cards, gift cards, eSIMs, and bill payments, Pil is designed for companies with recurring expenses, approval flows, and accounting needs. It allows businesses to fund cards using naira, cedi, or stablecoins, assign controlled access to teams, and track spending from a single dashboard.

A broader shift toward fintech infrastructure in Africa

The move comes as African fintechs increasingly push into owning infrastructure. Since early 2026, the ecosystem has seen payment companies expand beyond surface-level fintech services: Paystack acquired a microfinance bank, while Flutterwave moved deeper into backend financial rails. The shift reflects a growing consensus that consumer fintech alone struggles to scale without control over underlying systems.

Founded in 2019 by Balogun Usman and Faturoti Kayode, and now led by CEO Emmanuel Sohe, Cardtonic says Pil grew out of its own internal problems. Managing subscriptions, ad spend, and cross-border payments became costly and unreliable, with card limits changing without warning and transactions failing at critical moments.

One of the co-founders said the company spent tens of thousands of dollars monthly on tools and advertising, often relying on expensive platforms simply because there were no better options. The internal tool they built to stabilise their operations eventually became Pil.

With this funding, Cardtonic plans to position Pil as an operating system for business spending across Africa, ahead of its planned January 2026 launch. The roadmap includes deeper spending controls, accounting integrations, and infrastructure that can support large teams and high transaction volumes.

The raise places Cardtonic among a small group of African fintechs securing early-stage capital in a market that is recovering unevenly. While seed funding has shown signs of rebound, pre-seed activity remains thin, making Cardtonic’s entry into infrastructure notable six years after its founding.