Revio raises $1.1m to solve payments failure conundrum

New products, an expanded team, and access to emerging markets are on the cards for fintech SaaS start-up Revio following the completion of a $1.1 million seed funding round backed by leading investors.

The round to try and solve the payments failure problem in parts of Africa was led by SpeedInvest and joined by Ralicap Ventures, The Fund, and Two Culture Capital. Several angel investors also participated, including payment and revenue recovery experts from Sequoia, Quona Capital, and Circle Payments.

Revio – an API payment and collections start-up – helps businesses to recover lost transactions to increase revenue, optimise cashflow and, ultimately, increase customer lifetime value. It boasts a series of fintech solutions for payments orchestration, billing automation, and revenue recovery.

Speaking to Ventureburn, Revio founder and chief executive Ruaan Botha says, “We’re grateful to be supported by some of the world’s best fintech investors and operators. We have ambitions to build a global business that helps businesses reduce failed payments and recover revenue they’ve earned.”

This is Revio’s first institutional funding round since emerging from stealth in March 2021.

Botha says, “We know that growing a business is hard, but getting paid shouldn’t be. I’m excited to partner with our investor community to accelerate our growth and the value that we deliver to our customers.”

In Africa, up to three out of every ten payments fail, compared to the 0.7 global average. Reasons for this include the fragmented payments landscape, higher dispute rates, invalid or expired card details, false-positive fraud checks, multiple or dormant accounts, and insufficient funds.

This high failure rate results in billions of dollars in lost revenue.

In Africa alone, an estimated $14 billion in recurring revenue is uncollected each year, and the continent has a 320% higher churn rate than mature markets.

With digital payments growing at 20%+ year-on-year, this problem will only intensify, adds Botha. While gateways and aggregators have made it easier for businesses to accept multiple payment methods, few solutions exist to deal with payment failures.

Go-to revenue recovery and growth partner

According to Hayden Simmons, a partner at RaliCap Ventures, Revio is on a mission to build a category-leading product to enable businesses to better manage their cash flow and accelerate growth. He says, “The African payments landscape is fragmented, and we believe they will play a critical role in contributing to the growth of subscription commerce and companies with pan-African scale.”

In just one year of trading, Revio has landed more than 50 customers and processes thousands of transactions each month. Its client base is diverse, spanning large-scale enterprises, mid-market corporates, and fast-growing scale-ups across multiple industries.

The South Africa-founded start-up describes itself as “locally grounded but globally relevant.” The Revio team aims to be the go-to revenue recovery and growth partner for businesses in all emerging markets.

“Revio’s leadership team has bold ambitions and deep industry experience, which is a powerful combination. They have attracted some of the best talent in the market and are executing at pace. We are excited to be investing at this inflection point in their journey,” says Scott Hartley, co-founder and partner at The Fund.

Revio drives fundamental change

SpeedInvest fintech investor Alvaro Perezcano adds, “Having been part of multiple payment orchestration and billing automation platforms across the world, we can see the incredible potential of using this toolset to increase revenue recovery for businesses in a region where three out of ten payments fail.

“With a team as experienced as Revio’s at the helm of tackling this massive opportunity we’re convinced that they can fundamentally change the payments landscape for businesses in their target markets and are excited to be backing them on that journey.”

Besides Botha, the Revio executive team includes chief commercial officer Pieter Grobbelaar, an experienced business development director, who joined from Flutterwave, where he was country lead for South Africa.

Kyle Titus is the start-up’s chief technology officer while Nicole Dunn, an experienced venture builder and strategic operator, joined the team in August as chief operating officer. The chief product officer is Stefan Griesel who boasts more than eight years of fintech product experience.

“Customers are treated like gold when they are being acquired, and like criminals when they fail to pay. We’re building a better collections system, where businesses can recover earned revenue while treating customers fairly and with empathy,” says Dunn.

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