Payments orchestration start-up NjiaPay has closed a US$2.1-million (R35-million) seed funding round led by European software-as-a-service investor Newion.
The company, which acts as a neutral coordination layer on top of a merchant’s payment service provider (PSP) stack, said it will use the capital to expand its engineering and commercial teams, strengthen integrations, and accelerate growth across Africa.
NjiaPay was founded in late 2024 by Jonatan Allback and Roderick Simons and spun out of Talk360, the international calling app serving Africa. While scaling Talk360 across multiple African markets, the team encountered the challenge of managing numerous payment providers, each with different success rates, integrations and reporting systems.
Through a single API, NjiaPay intelligently routes transactions in real time, selects the best-performing provider and consolidates performance data into a unified view. Rather than replacing PSPs, it coordinates them to maximise successful payment outcomes and reduce operational friction.
The company said recurring and subscription businesses are especially vulnerable to payment failure, with around one in five transactions failing due to expired or replaced cards. To address this, NjiaPay is bringing tools such as Card Account Updater – widely used in Europe for more than a decade but still largely underutilised in South Africa – to the local market. The tool automatically updates saved card details and reduces avoidable payment failures.
After implementing NjiaPay, Talk360 reduced six PSP integrations to one and achieved a 25% increase in checkout conversion in key markets.
‘Pivotal monent’
“By tackling the complexity of the African payment ecosystem, NjiaPay has freed Talk360 to focus on growth,” said Hans Osnabrugge, CEO of Talk360.
NjiaPay has been operating for about a year, with a particular focus on South African-based businesses over the past eight months. Its client base includes Talk360, Anytime Fitness and Melon Mobile. The company has a team of about 20 people based across the Netherlands and South Africa, with headquarters in Amsterdam and offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
“Closing this seed round with Newion is a pivotal moment for NjiaPay,” said CEO Allback in a statement on Monday. “In just one year, we have demonstrated that payment orchestration is becoming essential for businesses operating in Africa.”
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Mathijs de Wit, managing partner at Newion Partners, said: “Despite rapid fintech innovation, payments across Africa remain fragmented and complex for merchants. NjiaPay addresses this with a robust, enterprise-grade orchestration layer that unifies providers, increases reliability and optimises transaction performance.” — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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