The biggest startup funding rounds in South Africa are led by a handful of fintechs. Tyme Group’s $250 million Series D in December 2024 is the largest we could verify, and it is a long way clear of the next.
Below are the seven largest disclosed rounds, ranked by size, each tied to a dated announcement you can read yourself. This is a list of rounds, not of companies, so one company can appear twice.
The seven biggest rounds
| # | Company | Round | Announced | Who and what |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tyme Group (TymeBank) | $250m Series D | December 2024 | Led by Nubank, which put in $150m; M&G Catalyst Fund $50m. Valued at $1.5bn. Source |
| 2 | JUMO | $120m | November 2021 | Led by Fidelity; Visa and Kingsway Capital took part. Valued at $400m. Equity. Source |
| 3 | Planet42 | $100m, debt and equity | February 2023 | $15m of it equity, co-led by Naspers and ARS Holdings; $75m was a lending facility from Rivonia Road Capital. Source |
| 4 | Yoco | $83m Series C | 2021 | Backed by Dragoneer. Yoco makes card machines and payments software for small businesses. Source |
| 5 | TymeBank | $77.8m pre-Series C | July 2024 | Co-led by Norrsken22 and Blue Earth Capital, with existing investor Tencent. Took TymeBank’s total capital to over $260m. Source |
| 6 | Stitch | $55m Series B | April 2025 | Led by QED Investors, with Norrsken22, Flourish Ventures and Glynn Capital. Stitch says its total funding is now $107m. Source |
| 7 | VALR | $50m Series B | March 2022 | Led by Pantera Capital. Valued at $240m and described as Africa’s largest crypto raise at the time. Source |
What the list shows
Six of the seven are financial technology: digital banking, lending, payments and crypto. The exception is Planet42, a car subscription business, and its headline figure is mostly debt, which is why it is marked. On equity alone Planet42’s $15 million would not make the list.
A single company can dominate a ranking of rounds, and Tyme does. Its two entries are five months apart: the $77.8 million round in July 2024 took its total capital raised to over $260 million, and the $250 million Series D followed in December.
The biggest round in detail
According to TechCrunch’s report of the deal, Nu Holdings, the parent of the Brazilian digital bank Nubank, put in $150 million for a 10% stake. The M&G Catalyst Fund contributed $50 million and existing shareholders another $50 million, at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The report puts Tyme Group’s customer base at 15 million, 10 million of them on TymeBank in South Africa and 5 million on GoTyme in the Philippines, and says the group plans to expand into Vietnam and Indonesia.
JUMO’s $120 million came three years earlier, in November 2021, and was led by Fidelity with Visa and Kingsway Capital taking part, at a valuation of $400 million. The company said at the time that it had raised more than $200 million in equity and debt combined since it was founded in 2015. Neither of the two biggest rounds went to a company that operates only in South Africa, which is worth remembering when reading the list as a measure of the local market.
For a wider view of how money moves in this market, see our South Africa markets page and our guide to government funding for small businesses.
How we ranked this
- By round size, in US dollars as announced. We did not convert to rand, because the rate on the day differs from today’s.
- Not by total funding. The published totals do not agree. For Tyme alone we found over $260 million (the company, before the Series D), $341 million and $528 million (two databases), and nearly $600 million (TechCrunch’s count after the Series D). Yoco appears at $107 million in some places and $177 million in others. A round is a dated event with a source, so it can be checked.
- Only rounds we could tie to a company or press announcement. Acquisitions, listings and undisclosed rounds are left out.
- Debt is flagged. Where a headline mixes debt and equity, the row says so.
If a company should be here and we have missed it, or a figure is wrong, tell us through our contact page and we will check it and correct the list. We update the ranking when a larger round is announced.
