South Africa’s littlefish raises $9.5M

South African fintech littlefish has raised $9.5 million in a Series A round led by Partech, with TLCOM, Flourish Ventures, and Proparco also participating to build merchant infrastructure for African banks. This is Partech’s second major investment in South Africa in 2026.

The company builds the software layer that lets banks offer merchant services such as payments, point-of-sale tools, CRMs, and APIs to small and mid-sized businesses, without losing ownership of those customer relationships to third-party fintechs.

The company’s existing clients include Standard Bank, First National Bank (FNB), and Absa — three of South Africa’s largest banks. Visa has also embedded littlefish’s platform into its small business onboarding process. Since its seed round, the company’s monthly recurring revenue has grown 30 times.

The new capital will fund team growth, product development, and expansion into more than 10 African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

Founded in 2021 by Brandon Roberts and Miod Davith Kahwa, littlefish’s core bet is that Africa’s 80 million SMEs are better served through the banks they already trust than through standalone fintech apps competing against those banks. Its platform plugs directly into POS devices and core banking systems, giving banks a single orchestration layer rather than a patchwork of disconnected tools.

“The little guys deserve world-class financial infrastructure,” Roberts said, “and we’re building it.”

Partech Principal Matthieu Marchand said the firm backed littlefish because it had built infrastructure that Africa’s biggest financial institutions were willing to stake their merchant businesses on, a difficult bar to clear on a continent where informal businesses account for up to 90% of all enterprises.

TLCOM led the company’s seed round, marking its first investment in South Africa at the time. Flourish Ventures also participated in the seed round and returned for this round.

Last updated: March 24, 2026