South African Fintech littlefish Raises $9.5M Series A for Merchant Infrastructure

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South Africa’s littlefish has closed a $9.5 million Series A round to expand its white-label merchant operating system for banks across Africa.

The Johannesburg-based fintech, founded in 2021 by CEO Brandon Roberts and co-founder Neha Kumar, builds a unified platform that combines payments, point-of-sale tools, CRM, merchant portals, and APIs. Instead of competing directly with banks for merchant relationships, littlefish partners with them, enabling large financial institutions to offer modern digital services to small and medium-sized businesses while retaining customer ownership.

The round, announced on March 24, was led by Partech with participation from existing backers TLcom Capital, Flourish Ventures, and Proparco. All four investors had supported the company’s earlier seed round. The fresh capital will be used to grow the team, enhance product capabilities (including deeper AI integrations), and push into more than 10 additional African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

littlefish is already live with major Tier 1 banks such as Standard Bank Group, First National Bank, and Absa. Its infrastructure-first approach reflects a maturing trend in African fintech: rather than building consumer-facing apps that challenge incumbents, startups are increasingly creating the back-end tools that help banks serve the continent’s vast SME segment more effectively and profitably.

This funding comes at a time when banks are under pressure to digitize merchant services amid rising demand for seamless payments, inventory tools, and basic financial products among informal and small businesses. By providing a single, integrated system, littlefish aims to reduce fragmentation and help banks deepen their merchant relationships without heavy in-house development costs.

The deal also signals continued investor appetite for fintech infrastructure plays on the continent, especially those that embed deeply with established financial institutions rather than going direct-to-consumer. With Africa’s SME economy still largely underserved by digital tools, platforms like littlefish could become critical rails for the next phase of financial inclusion and digital commerce.

No post-money valuation was disclosed. The company said the round validates its model in South Africa and gives it runway to scale regionally while strengthening ties with its banking partners.