Moment, a Cape Town-headquartered payment infrastructure company with offices in Dubai, Johannesburg, Lagos, Kigali and London, has closed a $22 million Series A round. AlphaCode Venture Partners led the investment, with General Catalyst and MultiChoice continuing their backing and Canal+, the French media company that recently acquired MultiChoice, joining as a new investor. Entrée Capital, the Raba Partnership and Helios Investment Partners also remain backers.
The company provides omnichannel payment collection tools and embedded financial services to businesses across African markets. Its platform processes 600,000 transactions per day and reaches 10 million people per month, covering locally preferred digital payment methods alongside an in-person acceptance network that spans more than two million physical locations. Those numbers reflect an infrastructure built to operate through power outages and connectivity gaps that recur across the markets it serves.
Joel Yarbrough, CEO of Moment, described what three years of building in African markets has produced: "Within three years of launch, we are processing for 10 million people a month across some of Africa's leading brands. We support the full spectrum of locally preferred digital payment methods as well as an in-person acceptance network spanning over two million physical locations. Our platform is highly resilient, and we process 600,000 transactions a day despite power and connectivity problems that plague the market. We've built a platform that can deliver on the particular challenges of the African market and help businesses get paid faster and at lower cost."
The fragmentation Moment navigates is structural rather than temporary. South Africa still routes more than two-thirds of payments through in-person retail locations despite high bank account penetration. Nigeria's market is dominated by instant bank transfers but faces persistent competition from cash, cards and digital wallets. Across other African markets, mobile money has grown where bank penetration is low, but dozens of competing operators have made unified collection across channels difficult for any single merchant to manage.
Dominique Collett, General Partner at AlphaCode Venture Partners, a South African venture firm focused on fintech, described the investment case: "Africa's payment complexity has long been a hidden tax on commerce, on every business trying to grow here, and on every household trying to participate in the digital economy. Moment is dismantling that barrier in a way we haven't seen before, at continental scale, compliantly, and with a product that the market's largest enterprises have already validated. We're backing Joel Yarbrough, Moment's CEO, and his team as they build a defining piece of Africa's financial infrastructure."
Thomas Follin, Chief Diversification Officer at Canal+, said the company's review of Moment followed its acquisition of MultiChoice and pointed to cost and quality improvements as the deciding factors: "Following Canal+'s acquisition of MultiChoice, we took a close look at Moment, and we were genuinely impressed. Moment has driven down cost and improved quality simultaneously. The business provides world-class technology for enterprise-grade subscription and billing customers that operate in Africa. Together we see a compelling opportunity to expand digital financial access across the continent."
Moment's product suite targets billers and subscription platforms including insurers, offering recurring payment tools, customer outreach capabilities and failed payment recovery across digital and in-person channels.
