Zimbabwean Fintech Startup Gets Funded By European Institutional Fund At A USD20 Million Valuation

Payitup is a payments startup in Zimbabwe that seeks to aggregate various payments services on a web and mobile application. They are still not sharing much around the specific services that they are launching but they say these cut across payment for goods and services to insurance and investment.

The company’s CEO, Aretha Gonyora only had this to share:

We want our application to create opportunities and add value to everyone who uses it. We have a long road ahead of us and we look forward to sharing that journey with our users

The business was established in 2017 and from then they were mostly working in the entertainment space facilitating payments for Pay TV services.

Their core team is made up of Aretha (Co-founder and CEO), Ronald Tapfuma Rwodzi (Co-founder and President) and Kenneth Tafadzwa Matikizha (Co-founder and COO).

Investment

Payitup has secured investment from Thawer Fund Management. The details of the deal are not being disclosed except that the Series A investment is for USD13 million and gives Payitup a valuation of USD20 million. Working backwards this gives an estimate shareholding of 35% remaining with the founders and 65% being taken up by the investors.

Rahim Thawer, Managing Partner of the fund says this about Payitup:

We are extremely delighted to be a part of such a vibrant, deeply rooted culture led by a dynamic and intelligent team that has a bold ambition to deliver superior service to its clientele. Our investment as a foreign institutional fund solidifies a long term partnership to all parties engaged across various disciplines.

Where to from now?

Payitup is now on a drive to recruit partners in the several verticals they want to play in. They are also now working on integrating their web application and their mobile application and building out their capacity.