Yoco builds tools and services to help small businesses accept card payments in-store and online, access loans, and manage their day-to-day activities. The startup has become the preferred payments partner for over 150,000 small businesses across South Africa, processing more than US$1 billion in card payments per year. The company, which secured US$83 million in Series C funding last July, has just acquired Nona Digital. Founded by Mike Scott, Ed O’Reilly, Gordon Angus and two others in Cape Town in 2012, Nona was created with a vision to deliver software products and teams at a standard that raises the level of the industry. Over the years, they have grown into true experts in the realm of fintech, with a particular flair for Web3 application development. Yoco has been a Nona client since 2019, with the existing relationships, institutional knowledge and shared values the two organizations have cultivated to date meaning the Nona team can hit the ground running and accelerate the Yoco roadmap from day one.
Yoco plans to be the primary financial platform for the self-employed in Africa and the Middle East, with ambitions to serve one million entrepreneurs by 2024 through its payment’s software and capital products. The company claims this type of team acquisition is especially effective in today’s context of high demand for talent. This is the third and largest acquisition of a software development agency by Yoco since 2019, having acquired Cobi Interactive in 2019 and Dado in 2021. This latest addition takes Yoco’s team size up to 500 people, half of which are product and technology focused. Off the back of its Series C last year, Yoco is increasing its talent footprint across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.