Revio, a South African payment orchestration platform, has secured $5.2 million in seed funding to address the issue of payment failures that cost digital businesses billions in recurring revenue each year. The funding round was led by QED Investors and Partech, with participation from existing investors including Speedinvest, Ralicap, and Everywhere VC. This comes just months after Revio raised $1.1 million in pre-seed funding.
Key Takeaway
Revio, a South African payment orchestration platform, has raised $5.2 million in seed funding to address the issue of payment failures in Africa. The company provides businesses with APIs to connect to multiple payment methods and improve payment success rates. It plans to expand its services to global retailers targeting the African market and aims to unlock increased e-commerce and digital payment activity on the continent.
Tackling Fragmentation in the Payment Landscape
Revio was founded by Ruaan Botha, who observed the challenges faced by businesses in collecting payments across multiple providers and dealing with failed payments. The African payment landscape is highly fragmented, with over 280 licensed payment service providers, 42 currencies, and diverse consumer payment cultures. As a result, payment failures are common due to factors such as invalid cards, inactive accounts, and high dispute rates.
Revio assists companies in streamlining their order-to-cash lifecycles by offering APIs that integrate with multiple payment methods. Through its platform, businesses can connect to over 70 payment methods and service providers, enabling transaction routing, automated failover and retries, and real-time customer engagement workflows to increase payment success rates. Revio also provides a revenue recovery solution that re-engages consumers in the checkout process through channels like email, SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications.
Expansion Plans and Target Customers
Revio has seen significant growth over the past year, with its revenue increasing by 1,000%. It currently serves around 50 customers, primarily large-scale enterprises with complex payment requirements. The company plans to target global retailers servicing the African market in its next development phase and has already begun engaging with potential clients to better understand their needs.
With the newly raised capital, Revio aims to expand its technological capabilities, particularly in cross-border reconciliation settlement, and grow its team by hiring talent within and outside Africa. The company believes that there is still much to be done to solve the payment challenges in Africa and aims to unlock increased e-commerce and digital payment activity on the continent.
