South African API Startup Stitch Raises $21M Series A Round

South African API infrastructure startup Stitch raised $21 million in a Series A funding round to help accelerate the expansion of Africa’s rapidly growing FinTech sector, according to a press release. The company raised $6 million in a seed round last year after coming out of stealth in February 2021.

The funding round was led by The Spruce House Partnership, with participation from PayPal Ventures, TrueLayer, firstminute capital, The Raba Partnership, CRE Venture Capital, Village Global, Zinal Growth, Chipper Cash founders, Quovo, Unit and others.

The fresh infusion of capital will be earmarked to further build out the necessary infrastructure to create the future of money on the continent by connecting bank accounts, wallets and other stores of value. The infrastructure for payments and data already in place by Stitch brings together the fragmented FinTech landscape and enables seamless transactions that offer greater growth and revenue potential while slashing conversion time and cost.

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“We are incredibly fortunate to be supported by some of the best investors, founders and builders in the fintech space globally,” said Stitch co-founder and CEO Kiaan Pillay. “They are working closely with us to enable the boom we’re seeing in financial technology on the continent. Across the hundreds of customers we work with, big and small, we’re witnessing a record pace of development of new financial products.”

Pillay added that the company’s overall mission is to assist these FinTechs and embedded finance providers so they can quickly roll out “innovative and tailored products,” reach new sectors, optimize their tools and accelerate their growth.

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Stitch has a self-service portal so businesses can onboard immediately. The Stitch API enables businesses to easily access and link their users’ financial accounts to verify account information and ownership, access transaction and balance data and more.

“We have been following startups in Africa for many years. Our diligence was very clear that this is one of the most talented teams on the continent, and we are excited to be a part of what they are building at Stitch,” said Ben Stein, co-founder of The Spruce House Partnership.

Startups in Africa raised a record $4 billion in 2021, with the vast majority (estimated at 62%) going to FinTechs.