littlefish, a Johannesburg-based fintech startup, has raised $9.5 million in Series A funding to expand its financial infrastructure platform for small businesses across Africa. The development reflects a broader shift in the fintech sector, where startups are increasingly focused on enabling financial institutions to better support SMEs through integrated technology.
The funding round was led by global tech investment firm Partech, with participation from Proparco and returning investors TLcom Capital and Flourish Ventures. This comes just a year after littlefish secured its seed funding, showing growing confidence in its model.
littlefish is building what it describes as a merchant operating system, designed to simplify how small businesses manage their daily operations. Founded in Johannesburg in 2021, the company combines key tools such as point-of-sale systems, customer management platforms, payments and APIs into one unified system. This allows businesses to run their operations more efficiently without switching between multiple platforms.
Small businesses across Africa often rely on fragmented systems. Many use different tools for payments, accounting, inventory and banking, which creates inefficiencies and increases security risks. In South Africa, more than 70% of small businesses have faced at least one attempted cyberattack, highlighting the risks linked to disconnected systems.
“Whether you’re using online store tools, e-commerce tools, in-store tools, a book and a pen, an Excel spreadsheet, a bank account, a wallet, or an accounting package, these are all the things you’re expected to use nowadays,” said Brandon Roberts, co-founder and CEO of littlefish.
Strengthening Financial Institutions to Better Serve SMEs
Rather than offering its services directly to small businesses, littlefish works through financial institutions. Its platform is offered as a white-labelled software-as-a-service product, allowing banks to provide integrated merchant solutions while maintaining control of their customer relationships.
This approach reflects a broader shift in Africa’s fintech sector, where startups are increasingly focusing on building infrastructure that supports existing financial institutions instead of competing with them.
“The biggest problem we were going to solve is helping merchants,” said Neha Kumar, co-founder of littlefish. “I think we can do it in a more scalable and impactful manner through the market approach we’ve taken, which is to go through the financial institutions.”
The company has already established partnerships with major banks in South Africa, including Standard Bank, First National Bank and Absa. These relationships position littlefish as a key infrastructure provider in the financial ecosystem, helping banks deliver better services to small businesses.
“littlefish has done something rare: it has built indispensable infrastructure and convinced Africa’s most powerful financial institutions to stake their merchant businesses on it,” said Matthieu Marchand, Principal at Partech. “With the deep trust littlefish has already established in South Africa and a clear path to expansion across more than 10 markets, we believe the company is positioned to become the defining merchant infrastructure layer for the continent.”
Expansion Across Africa and Long-Term Impact
The new funding will be used to grow the company’s team, accelerate product development and expand into new markets including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. By scaling its platform through existing banking partners, littlefish aims to reach millions of small businesses across the continent.
“We’ve proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and bring what we’ve built to millions more merchants across the continent,” Roberts said. “The little guys deserve world-class financial infrastructure, too, and we’re building it.”
littlefish also positions itself as a connector within the financial ecosystem, working alongside both banks and fintech companies rather than competing with them.
“Our fundamental role is to play more of a connector and an enabler,” Kumar said. “The approach we take is not to say what slice of the pie we are trying to keep for ourselves, but rather what allows us to provide this connected, interoperable system for merchants.”
As the company expands, its model could play a key role in improving efficiency, security and access to financial services for small businesses. By enabling financial institutions with better tools, littlefish is helping to build a more connected and scalable financial system for Africa’s growing SME sector.
