MultiChoice-affiliated fintech startup Moment has raised more than R360m in fresh funding that it will use to expand its technology while pushing to grow further on the African continent.
Moment first gained public attention in May 2023 when MultiChoice joined mobile operators, including Vodacom and MTN, in turning to financial services and digital payments as a way to grow revenue outside its traditional business.
At the time, the DStv operator unveiled it as a new division that would process and aggregate payments across the African continent. Moment still facilitates payments for DStv’s subscription services.
On Tuesday, the company announced the close of a $22m (about R361.8m) Series A funding round, led by AlphaCode Venture Partners, with continued investment from General Catalyst, MultiChoice and fresh investment from the DStv operator’s new owner, Canal+.
Since inception, Moment has raised $55m to develop payment infrastructure businesses, offering a range of payment collection and revenue retention solutions to corporate and enterprise merchants.
The company said it will use the additional funding from this latest round to deepen its network, enhance its platform and accelerate expansion across Africa.
The platform was initially billed as a joint venture with Rapyd, a payments platform that inserts fintech services into any app and simplifies the complex offering of local payment methods.
At the core of its strategy, Moment is looking to offer a unified payments platform that helps businesses across Africa accept payments, regardless of the payment method.
“Moment offers billers and merchants such as insurers and subscription platforms an unrivalled suite of collection tools, including recurring payments, customer outreach tools, failed payment recoveries across digital and in-person channels, and the ability to directly link Moment to their enterprise billing systems,” said the company.
For consumers, the platform allows customers to pay with any locally preferred payment method, spanning cards, mobile money, real-time bank transfers, eWallets, recurring bank debits, and in-person payments.
Moment CEO Joel Yarbrough said: “Within three years of launch, we are processing for 10-million people a month across some of Africa’s leading brands. We support the full spectrum of locally preferred digital payment methods as well as an in-person acceptance network spanning over two million physical locations.
“Our platform is highly resilient, and we process 600,000 transactions a day despite power and connectivity problems that plague the market. We’ve built a platform that can deliver on the particular challenges of the African market and help businesses get paid faster and at lower cost.”
Thomas Follin, chief diversification officer at Canal+, said: “Following Canal+’s acquisition of MultiChoice, we took a close look at Moment, and we were genuinely impressed. Moment has driven down cost and improved quality simultaneously. The business provides world-class technology for enterprise-grade subscription and billing customers that operate in Africa.
“Together we see a compelling opportunity to expand digital financial access across the continent,” he said.
Business Day
