Mobile Payments Startup Zapper Aims at $1B Valuation With Planned Fundraise

South African mobile payments platform Zapper is exploring its capital-raising options, including launching a sale to buy stake in the startup, in an effort to push its valuation to almost $1 billion, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (July 5).

The Cape Town-based platform hired Ernst & Young as its advisers on a potential deal, according to the report. Zapper may also team up with a strategic bidder.

“Management is excited by future opportunities, underpinned by an innovative technology roadmap,” a Zapper spokesperson said, per the report. Interested parties place “us in excellent standing for ongoing and future discussions.”

African startups attracted a record $5 billion in fundraising last year as investors backed firms trying to fix the continent’s struggling banking infrastructure and other financial issues, the report stated. FinTechs have expanded over the past several years across Africa, with several attaining unicorn status — valuations of more than $1 billion — as privately owned entities.

Zapper has operated a mobile payments platform since 2014 that now has about 250,000 customers and 65,000 merchants. The offering enables quick settlements with QR codes and URL technology and the use of data insights to award discounts, according to the report.

In May, Zapper announced that merchants on its platform can accept tap-on-phone payments, giving them access to almost all digital payments without needing other point-of-sale (POS) hardware.

Read more: South Africa’s Zapper Turns Merchant’s Phone Into Tap-and-Pay POS Device

The upgrade adds PIN-on-glass functionality, meaning customers who have gone over their verification limit can enter their personal identification number on the merchant’s Android phone, proceeding with their transaction in the same manner as they would on a regular PIN entry device.

The app’s new functions turn the merchant’s phone into a POS device, without any need for other hardware.