FundingTech

Talk360 Raises $4m Seed Round to Expand its Calling Business, Build African Payment Platform

Story Highlights
  • International calling app Talk360, which enables people around the world to make reliable and affordable calls to any landline or mobile phone worldwide, has secured $4 million (R64 million) in funding as it prepares to launch a new pan-African payment platform in mid-2022.

The seed round of funding was led by leading African venture capital investor HAVAÍC, 4Di Capital and several prominent fintech angel investors.

While the Talk360 app is seeing rapid growth on the continent, with a growing number of paying users, accessibility has been an issue for the 500 million underserviced people.

Users either don’t have online banking to buy Talk360 airtime, or their local currencies or payment methods are simply not supported.

The new payment platform aims to address the continued issue of inaccessibility by providing users with the option to buy products and services using any currency and more than 160 payment methods. It will also be opened to other service providers.

Talk360 was co-founded in 2016 by South African venture builder Dean Hiine, Dutch entrepreneurs Hans Osnabrugge and Jorne Schamp.

With offices in South Africa, The Netherlands, India and Nigeria, it connected more than 2 million people in 2021.

“From the start, our mission was to bridge distance and connect lives by offering reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use digital services, delivered in a localised manner to all communities, particularly emerging countries, so they can connect to the world,” said Hiine.

“The Talk360 app is now the number one calling app in Africa, independent of users’ currency or preferred way of payment. Thanks to our + 750K physical points of sale and ability to support mobile wallets, our reach goes beyond the traditional credit and debit card support that international companies usually use. We now have enough traction to attract internationally renowned investors to expand our footprint and allow other companies to use our unique single checkout payment platform for all of Africa,” said Hiine.

Source
TechEconomy

Nichole Manhire

Is the media and brand manager at GFA News. She works very closely with editors and podcasters that contribute to telling the African business success story. For marketing and advertising send Nichole an email: nichole@getfundedafrica.com

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