Africa’s Duplo raises $4.3m in seed funding round

African B2B payments fintech Duplo has secured $4.3 million in seed funding, with participation from a coalition of investors and angels.

Liquid 2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund, and Y Combinator are among the 45 investors to have participated in the seed funding round, while Oui Capital re-invested, having participated in the previous round.

Duplo went live in January 2022, with the aim of modernising business-to-business payments for African enterprises.

A recent report published by Duplo, titled ‘The State of B2B Payments in Africa’, surveyed 1,000 business owners from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt, and found that 44% of businesses still have to wait more than 24 hours to receive payments from business customers and partners.

It also revealed that 34% take up to seven days to receive payments, 17% take up to 30 days and 3% take more than 30 days to receive business payments.

Duplo CEO Yele Oyekola

In a blog post announcing the seed funding, Duplo CEO Yele Oyekola wrote: “The process of making and receiving business payments remains largely manual, which makes it expensive and highly inefficient for businesses.”

He added that invoices are also not standardised, increasing the administrative burden on business owners.

Oyekola wrote: “FMCG distributors can onboard retailers in their network on the Duplo platform, making it easier for them to collect payments digitally and access real-time insights into business performance. They can also automate payments to vendors, manufacturers, and suppliers, with instant payments enabling them to transact in larger quantities.

“For finance teams, Duplo’s end-to-end solution automates the back office processes of generating and processing invoices, receiving and approving bills, collecting and disbursing funds, and completing account reconciliation.”