These investments reiterate Visa’s focus on facilitating digital innovation in Africa, driving fintech growth, and enhancing financial inclusion across the continent. 

The four startups, operating across multiple African countries are: 

• Oze, a Ghana-based startup providing digital record-keeping tools and embedded finance products to SMEs. The company helps businesses manage transactions, access affordable capital, and attain growth. Additionally, the startup offers a Loan Management System (LMS) for financial institutions, featuring machine learning-based credit scoring to enhance lending decisions and expand access to credit for MSMEs.
• Workpay, a HR tech firm headquartered in Kenya. The company offers a comprehensive cloud-based payroll and HR platform that manages the entire employee lifecycle, enabling payroll processing, time tracking, employee benefits administration, performance management and Employer of Record services in more than 35 countries across Africa.
• OkHi based in Nigeria, is a smart addressing system that provides digital address verification, enabling businesses to collect, verify, and navigate to accurate addresses, thereby improving delivery efficiency and access to financial services.
• ORDA, a cloud-based restaurant software company digitizing over 1,500 restaurants across Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa with tools for order processing, inventory management, and financial services to optimize operations and fuel growth.

Graduates of the second cohort of the program will have the opportunity to present their innovative capabilities during a Demo Day set to take place on December 2nd in Cape Town, South Africa, to an audience of venture capitalists, angel investors, ecosystem enablers and business partners.

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program – is a three-month intensive program that supports Seed to Series A start-ups by offering 1:1 mentorship, training, and exclusive opportunities for funding and partnership. 

Launched in 2023, it aligns with Visa’s pledge to invest $1 billion in the continent by 2027, helping to uplift and bolster its digital transformation.

Godfrey Sullivan, senior vice president of Products, Partnerships and Digital Solutions for Visa CEMEA, said “These investments mark a substantial step for Visa – we are once again standing behind our commitment to innovation in Africa, helping to shape the future of digital payments alongside some of the brightest fintech minds that the continent has to offer. Visa sees each investment as a unique opportunity to drive financial access and inclusion, and we are proud to support these start-ups as they realize their vision for a more connected Africa.”

Meghan McCormick, chief executive officer at Oze commented: “This investment marks the latest pivotal moment in our journey, enabling us to scale our innovations to continue supporting MSMEs across Africa – something that both we and our shareholders are truly passionate about.”

Timbo Drayson, co-founder and CEO of Okhi commented:  “We are thrilled to welcome Visa onboard as we continue to disrupt the industry and redefine what’s possible through our identity verification solutions. The future is bright, and partnerships like this help us take a step forward toward achieving our vision.”

Guy Futi, co-founder of ORDA commented: “We are proud to have an established payments leader such as Visa be part of our growth journey. We see this investment as a mark of trust in our vision. We look forward to driving innovation together, one order at a time.”

Paul Kimani, co-founder and CEO of WorkPay commented: “We are happy to have Visa in our corner. As a trusted leader in digital payments, Visa’s support pushes us toward our goal of delivering innovative solutions and streamlining backend processes for all.”

Additional investments and commercial partnerships with the program’s graduates are being finalized and will be announced soon.

The Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program is supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS), which offers free cloud services to cohort participants. 

Companies interested in Africa are invited to join and contribute to developing the next generation of fintech innovators, experiencing the transformative power of these partnerships.

The funding round, which included participation from Visa and existing investors, such as Y Combinator and Saviu Ventures, brings Workpay’s total raised to nearly $10 million since its launch in 2019. 

The involvement of Visa, following its fintech accelerator program, points to the prospects seen in Workpay’s growth and future direction.

Founded by Paul Kimani and Jackson Kungu, Workpay initially focused on payroll services but has grown into a comprehensive HR platform designed to meet the complex needs of businesses across Africa. 

The platform offers simplified solutions for managing HR and payroll functions, which remains a huge challenge for many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the continent.

Workpay addresses these challenges by providing an affordable, user-friendly cloud-based solution that makes HR and payroll management seamless, enabling its accessibility even to businesses that traditionally rely on Excel and Google Sheets due to the prohibitive costs of more complex systems. 

The platform supports local businesses with 20-100 employees operating within a single country, as well as larger companies with up to 1,000 employees spread across multiple African countries.

The recent funding will be used to expand Workpay’s financial services offerings, enhance its performance management tools with artificial intelligence, and grow its workforce. 

Also, Workpay aims to solidify its presence across Africa, having already added nearly 500 businesses to its platform in the past 16 months, serving more than 1,000 customers in 20 African countries. 

Despite delays in its expansion into Francophone Africa, the company has seen its revenue grow by 1.5 times in the first half of 2024 and is on track to double by the end of the year.

Kimani, Workpay’s co-founder, says the company remains well-placed despite the increasing global competition. 

He noted that the diverse regulatory sector across African countries puts forward a unique challenge for international players, but believes that Workpay’s deep understanding of the local market gives it a competitive edge, allowing the company to continue scaling rapidly while addressing the growing needs of African businesses.

Having raised an initial $2.1 million in seed funding, 2020, the current pre-Series A round boosts the total funding amount raised by Workpay. Investors in the current round were Launch Africa, Saviu Ventures, Acadian Ventures, Proparco, Fondation Botnar, Kara Ventures, Axian, P1 Ventures, and Norrsken. 

The YC-backed startup, W20 batch, was founded by the CEO, Paul Kimani and COO, Jackson Kungu. It plans to launch a payroll engine to serve customers in more markets, while it ensures efficient service provision and will release an API to enable firms such as accounting companies become payroll providers.

Workpay is a full-stack HR Payroll company that helps employees to manage and pay workers. The HR company offers tools that enable these clients pay salaries in local currencies across and outside Africa through partners, provides file taxes, and processes employee benefits. The tools also help employers track and manage employees’ time and attendance, as well as leave days.

The startup looks to include financial services in its offerings as it adds linkages to investment accounts, medical and asset insurance, and earned-wage access for employees attending to emergencies or bills.

Workpay affirms to experience a tremendous user base increase with revenue doubling annually, and has about $200 million in total payroll value being handled for customers every year.