littlefish secures $9.5m series A to expand merchant infrastructure for African banks

A South Africa-based fintech infrastructure company, littlefish, has raised $9.5 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firm Partech to expand its merchant services platform for banks across Africa.

The funding round, announced on Tuesday, also attracted participation from TLCOM, Flourish Ventures and Proparco. The company said the investment will support its plans to scale operations, expand into new African markets and strengthen its technology platform for financial institutions serving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Founded to help banks modernise their merchant services, littlefish provides a merchant operating system that connects financial institutions with businesses through integrated digital infrastructure. The platform combines point-of-sale applications, back-office customer management systems, merchant portals, payment capabilities and application programming interfaces (APIs) into a unified system that can be embedded in POS devices and core banking platforms.

The company works with several major banks in South Africa, including Standard Bank, First National Bank (FNB) and Absa. It also maintains a partnership with global payments company Visa, which has incorporated the littlefish platform into its small business onboarding strategy.

According to the company, its monthly recurring revenue has grown 30 times since its seed funding round.

Chief Executive Officer and co-founder Brandon Roberts said the company’s strategy is built around working with traditional financial institutions rather than bypassing them.

“We’ve proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and bring what we’ve built to millions more merchants across the continent,” Roberts said.

The new funding will enable littlefish to expand its workforce, accelerate product development and scale its market entry efforts. The company plans to deepen its presence in South Africa while extending operations to more than 10 additional African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Partech Principal Matthieu Marchand said the firm believes littlefish is well positioned to become a key merchant infrastructure provider across Africa, citing the company’s partnerships with major financial institutions and its expansion plans.

Flourish Ventures General Partner Ameya Upadhyay, whose firm also participated in the round, said the company had demonstrated strong traction since its seed investment and had built a platform that financial institutions increasingly rely on.

littlefish said the latest funding marks an important step in its effort to strengthen digital infrastructure that supports banks and the growing SME sector across the continent.