SA Payments Company, Yoco acquires Nona Digital, leading fintech, Web3 software development agency
Yoco a South African payments, and software company has announced its acquisition of one of the leading fintech and Web3 software development agencies in Africa, Nona Digital.
The payment firm raised a staggering sum of $83 million in Series C funding last July, has acquired Nona Digital. Both companies have been in partnership since 2019. Yoco will leverage the acquisition to accelerate its roadmap by inheriting a team of fintech professionals and technology experts to join its team.
Yoco builds tools and services to help small businesses accept card payments in-store and online, access loans, and manage their day-to-day activities. The startup has become the preferred payments partner for over 150,000 small businesses across South Africa, processing over $1 billion in card payments yearly.
“We are excited to welcome Nona and its team to Yoco. Nona is an industry leader behind some of the best digital banking and Web3 products both in the region and globally. All of this makes them a great fit for the direction we are taking and the evolution of our products. After working with the team for over a year, we realized that the cultural alignment between the two organizations and a shared passion for creating financial products for millions of self-employed Africans made working together with a no-brainer.” Lungisa Matshoba, CTO at Yoco said.
Reacting to the acquisition, Mike Scott, CEO at Nona said the acquisition allows Nona to direct everything that it has built towards a vision and mission that it believes in.
“We have spent the last 10 years building an exceptional team and capability in the Fintech and Web3 space. This acquisition allows us to direct everything that we have built towards a vision and mission that we believe in, and that matters. It is a natural evolution for a strong services business to move into product and we are very excited to now be part of the Yoco story.” Mike Scott, CEO at Nona said.
Yoco plans to be the primary financial platform for the self-employed in Africa and the Middle East, with ambitions to serve 1-million entrepreneurs by 2024 through its payments software and capital products. The company claims this type of team acquisition is “especially effective in today’s context of high demand for or scarcity of talent.”
This is Yoco’s third acquisition of a software company and the largest since it launched in 2019, having acquired Cobi Interactive in 2019 and Dado in 2021. This latest addition takes Yoco’s team size up to 500 people, 50% of which are product and technology-focused.
Since it successfully secured $83-million Series C in 2021, Yoco has been aggressively increasing its talent footprint across Africa, Europe & Middle East and bringing entrepreneurial and experienced talent from around the world.
“We have been bringing in talent aggressively across South Africa and other markets – employing people remotely across 15 geographies and in our talent hubs in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Amsterdam, Cairo, and Dubai,” said Matshoba.