South Africa: South Africa’s Yoco Acquires Fintech Agency Nona Digital

Yoco, an African payments, and software company has acquired one of the leading fintech and Web3 software development agencies in Africa, Nona Digital.

According to the announcement, this acquisition significantly accelerates Yoco’s roadmap by bringing a team of highly specialized fintech product and technology professionals to join Yoco’s team. The two companies have been in partnership since 2019.

“We are excited to welcome Nona and its team to Yoco. Nona is an industry leader behind some of the best digital banking and Web3 products both in the region and globally. All of this makes them a great fit for the direction we are taking and the evolution of our products,” Lungisa Matshoba, CTO, at Yoco explained.

“After working with the team for over a year, we realised that the cultural alignment between the two organisations and a shared passion for creating financial products for millions of self-employed Africans made working together a no-brainer,” he added.

“We have spent the last 10 years building an exceptional team and capability in the Fintech and Web3 space. This acquisition allows us to direct everything that we have built towards a vision and mission that we believe in, and that matters. It is a natural evolution for a strong services business to move into product and we are very excited to now be part of the Yoco story,” Mike Scott, CEO at Nona said.

Yoco plans to be the primary financial platform for the self-employed in Africa and the Middle East, with ambitions to serve 1-million entrepreneurs by 2024 through its payments software and capital products. The company claims this type of team acquisition is especially effective in today’s context of high demand for or scarcity of talent, the company said.

This is the third and largest acquisition of a software development agency by Yoco since 2019, having acquired Cobi Interactive in 2019 and Dado in 2021. This latest addition takes Yoco’s team size up to 500 people, 50% of which are product and technology-focused.

Off the back of its $83-million Series C in 2021, Yoco is increasing its talent footprint across Africa, Europe & Middle East and bringing entrepreneurial and experienced talent from around the world.

“We have been bringing in talent aggressively across South Africa and other markets – employing people remotely across 15 geographies and in our talent hubs in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Amsterdam, Cairo, and Dubai,” said Matshoba.