Sub-Saharan Africa has a $1.5T B2B payments market, and in this market, manual invoices and ineffective processes are frequently used by merchants, burdening them and making them struggle with their businesses.
In order to address these problems, Duplo, a B2B payments startup, has raised $4.3M in seed funding. The fintech enables African businesses to receive payments from customers and partners and to pay suppliers and vendors. The startup, which is backed by YC, has received a total of $5.6M since Yele Oyekola and Tunde Akinnuwa launched it last September. The news comes just seven months after Duplo announced its $1.3M pre-seed investment.
Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund, and Y Combinator were among the investors in the seed funding round. After taking part in the prior round, Oui Capital also made a new investment. The company will use the seed money to expand into new business sectors in Nigeria and launch new products.
Automated end-to-end solution
Duplo launched in September 2021 by Yele Oyekola and Tunde Akinnuwa automates the back-office processes of generating and processing invoices, receiving and approving bills, collecting and disbursing funds, and completing account reconciliation for finance teams. Duplo integrates with all major accounting and ERP platforms, including Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, QuickBooks, and Sage, and payments processed through Duplo are automatically synced in real-time with these platforms.
This January, the Nigerian startup launched with its first group of customers, FMCG distributors. FMCG distributors can use the Duplo platform to onboard retailers in their network, collect payments electronically, and gain real-time business performance insights.
FMCG distributors can automate payments to vendors, manufacturers, and suppliers, track and reconcile payments, and transact in larger amounts thanks to instant payments.
Yele Oyekola, CEO and co-founder of Duplo said, “we have seen a lot of innovation in consumer payments in Africa in recent years but business-to-business payments have largely stayed the same. We strongly believe that there is a great opportunity to catalyse growth and maximise business opportunities across the continent by removing the bottlenecks that hinder the seamless flow of money between businesses and we are excited to have raised funding from this exciting group of investors to deliver this much-needed transformation”.
Peter Oriaifo, Principal at Oui Capital said, “The Duplo team has built an incredible suite of products that improve how businesses make and receive payments from each other, and the growth that the company has experienced since our initial pre-seed investment in 2021 has been nothing short of impressive. It is for this reason that we are excited to back Duplo once more.”
Bring Nigerian businesses to the US, UK and Europe
Duplo now helps the finance departments of midsize and enterprise companies avoid becoming overly dependent on a specific market. The B2B payments startup automates account reconciliation, receiving and approving invoices, collecting and disbursing funds, and invoice generation and processing for finance teams. Additionally, Duplo has direct integrations with popular ERP and accounting software used by Nigerian businesses, including SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, QuickBooks, and Sage. As a result, payments made through Duplo are automatically synced with these software programmes in real time, saving the finance teams’ time and money while lowering errors and fraud.
According to Duplo, it currently facilitates payments from Nigerian businesses to the US, UK, and Europe; Oyekola claimed that settlement times typically range from 24 to 48 hours. Due to these product upgrades, according to Duplo, the number of companies using its platform increased by 1,000% in the past three months, and the total payment volume (TPV) processed in the previous five months increased by 4,200%.
