UK-based asset manager Apis Partners LLP’s private equity fund, Apis Growth Fund II, has proposed a €29m ($31m) investment in Peach Payments, a rapidly growing digital payment service provider that operates in South Africa, Kenya and Mauritius. The investment, which is subject to approval from the Competition Commission of South Africa and other customary closing conditions, will be used by Peach Payments to expand its product offering and reinforce its merchant value proposition.
Peach Payments has experienced exceptional growth in recent years, with revenue increasing more than 650% since 2020, and 80% in 2022 alone. The company has become the second largest online payment gateway in South Africa, with a staff complement of nearly 150 international professionals. Peach Payments’ existing investors include UW Ventures, Launch Africa and AG Ventures.
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Apis Partners specialises in supporting growth stage financial services and financial infrastructure businesses. The company will use its experience in scaling payment companies to support Peach Payments’ growth and geographic expansion. As an ESGI-native investor, Apis Partners’ sector expertise will help Peach Payments maximise financial inclusion by enabling more merchants to participate and grow in the digital economy.
“We continue to see significant opportunity in African payments as strong secular trends that are not related to annual business cycles – such as the conversion from cash to digital and in-store to online payments – persist across key markets,” said Matteo Stefanel, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Apis Partners. “We have been impressed by the vision and execution of the management team as Peach Payments capitalises on these trends to bring more end-users into the digital economy, a key part of our drive to democratise access across the continent. We look forward to partnering with Peach Payments to expand its reach into new markets with innovative merchant solutions.”
“At Peach Payments, our mission is to enable African businesses and entrepreneurs to succeed in digital commerce. We want to be the infrastructure layer they build their business on,” said Rahul Jain, Co-Founder and CEO, Peach Payments. “We’ve witnessed incredible growth in the past three years driven by fundamental forces and shifts in consumer and business adoption of digital commerce. Across market segments – from retail to digital learning, fitness, and even traditional financial services – we’ve onboarded new clients in almost every vertical. We’ve built a very strong team with exceptional operators and I am excited to partner with the team at Apis and take this business to where it deserves to be. The Apis team brings an incredible wealth of experience in fintech across the globe and we look forward to exploring exponential opportunities together with them.”
Peach Payments was founded by Jain and Andreas Demleitner in 2012 in Cape Town, South Africa, offering a payment gateway to local online merchants. It expanded to Kenya in 2018 and to Mauritius in 2021. Since it was founded, the company’s goal has been to be the online payment infrastructure provider that helps businesses scale. In achieving this goal, the business has focused on its merchants’ customers as much as the merchants themselves.
The company provides a toolkit that enables merchants to accept, manage and make payments via mobile and the web. Services offered include online payment acceptance, pay-outs (disbursements), and subscription solutions across a variety of payment types including cards, electronic funds transfer, digital wallets, mobile money, and Buy Now Pay Later options, among others. Peach Payments is known for delivering enterprise-grade products, high end-user conversion, best-in-class risk management, and actionable insights, backed by the best customer support experience on the continent, to its merchants.
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