South African fintech startup, Peach Payments, has expanded into the Francophone Africa region through the acquisition of Senegalese fintech, PayDunya.
BONNE NOUVELLE TRÈS CHERS PARTENAIRES ET CLIENTSMaintenant plus que jamais prêts à amener loin nos services
pic.twitter.com/jNHMdyl2U9
— PayDunya (@PayDunya) April 4, 2025
The Dakar-based fintech, PayDunya, started operations in 2015 after the Founder, Aziz Yérima, realised in 2013 that there were no options to integrate online payment solutions for a women’s community group he was helping to expand online.
Yérima worked on a prototype in 2014 and co-founded PayDunya with the aim to build payment infrastructure for Francophone Africa in 2015 with fellow ESMT-Dakar students, Youma Fall, Christian Palouki, and Honoré Hounwanou (from Senegal, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire respectively).
Today, PayDunya is active in six Francophone West African countries:
- Senegal
- Côte d’Ivoire
- Benin
- Burkina Faso
- Togo, and
- Mali
The platform enables online and mobile payments along with bulk payment collection and disbursement.
PayDunya handles transactions for companies such as:
- Jeune Afrique
- VFS Global
- SUNU Assurances
- Dubai Port Dakar
- Sky Mali
- Free Business (now Yas).
and other fintechs that rely on PayDunya’s infrastructure
“The UEMOA (West African Economic and Monetary Union) region and neighbouring Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region represent a tremendous opportunity for growth, with digital payments adoption increasing rapidly due to rising smartphone penetration and mobile money services.
It is early days for e-commerce and digital payments in these markets and by combining our expertise with Peach Payments’ capabilities, we are positioned to drive this growth and enable businesses to realise their full potential in the digital economy,” Yérima said.
According to Peach Payments, PayDunya is led by a proven team of digital entrepreneurs who’ve turned €20k ($21.9K) of bootstrap financing into a profitable net income company that:
- Employs over 40 people
- Serves more than 4,000 B2B customers, and
- Processes 70,000 transactions per day
“With strong unit economics, PayDunya was profitable in its third year and has increased its revenues every year since inception.”
“By integrating PayDunya, we are expanding our footprint into the UEMOA and CEMAC regions, unlocking new opportunities for merchants who can now partner with us and access over 450 million people across the markets we operate in,” said Peach Payments CEO and co-founder Rahul Jain.
“Together, we can now offer seamless payment solutions across 12 countries and we will continue to expand this coverage rapidly. This makes the acquisition of PayDunya an obvious step for us as we expand following our Series A funding round.”
This marks the third deal for Peach Payments since late 2023, following its €29 million ($30 million) funding round led by Apis Growth Fund II.
South Africa’s
Second Largest Online Payment Gateway, Peach Payments, Secures $31 Million in Series A Funding
Peach has set its sights on further expansion buoyed by strong growth in recent years. The fintech startup’s revenue has surged by over 650% since 2020, and by 80% in… pic.twitter.com/CwYFPmfnAt
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) April 14, 2023
In February 2024, the company acquired in-store payment technology firm, ExiPay, and in June 2024, it acquired the software development firm, Operativa, to strengthen its engineering capabilities.
Before its focus on Francophone Africa, these deals followed Peach Payments’ expansion into Kenya in 2018, Mauritius in 2021, and Eswatini in 2024.
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