Littlefish, a South Africa-based fintech infrastructure startup, has raised $9.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Partech, with participation from TLCOM, Flourish Ventures, and Proparco, as it looks to expand its merchant services platform across Africa.
The funding marks a key step in the company’s ambition to modernise how banks serve small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a segment increasingly central to Africa’s economic growth.
“This raise validates our belief that the best way to serve Africa’s small businesses is to work with the institutions they already trust,” said Brandon Roberts, co-founder and CEO of littlefish. “We’ve proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and extend our reach to millions more merchants across the continent.”
Investors say Littlefish is well-positioned to become a foundational layer in Africa’s financial services ecosystem.
“Littlefish has built indispensable infrastructure and earned the trust of some of Africa’s largest financial institutions,” said Matthieu Marchand, principal at Partech. “With a clear path to expansion across multiple markets, we believe the company can become the defining merchant infrastructure layer for the continent.”
Flourish Ventures, an early backer, also doubled down on its investment in the Series A round.
“When we invested at the seed stage, we believed in the team’s vision for bank-embedded merchant infrastructure,” said Ameya Upadhyay, general partner at Flourish Ventures. “They’ve since delivered strong execution, built deep institutional trust, and created a platform that banks increasingly rely on.”
Littlefish operates a merchant operating system that connects banks with businesses through a unified commerce layer. Its platform integrates point-of-sale (POS) applications, customer relationship management (CRM) tools, merchant portals, payments, and APIs into a single orchestration system.
This allows financial institutions to deliver fintech-grade services while maintaining direct relationships with their merchant customers.
The company already counts major tier-one banks such as Standard Bank, First National Bank (FNB), and Absa among its clients. It has also partnered with Visa, which has incorporated Littlefish’s technology into its small business onboarding strategy.
Since its seed round, littlefish said its monthly recurring revenue has grown 30-fold, underscoring rising demand for embedded merchant infrastructure among traditional financial institutions.
The company plans to use the new capital to grow its team, accelerate product development, and scale its go-to-market efforts. Expansion is already underway, with plans to enter more than 10 additional African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
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