Verto, a Nigeria-based B2B payments startup,  has raised US$10 million in a Series A round of funding according to reports. The SME-focused startup provides cross-border payments solutions for 39 currencies, on its web platform or by integrating with Verto’s API.

The round was led by VC firm Quona Capital. It also had participation from Treasury, Middle East Venture Partners, TMT Investments, Unicorn Growth Capital, Zrosk Investment Management, and P1 Ventures.

Funding will be used towards the development of Verto’s platform, and expansion into other markets across Africa.

“We plan to expand our presence in emerging markets with this fund through a suite of top-class tech stacks.

 

Geographically, this is an essential step towards our mission of making international payments simple, fast and cheap. Our purposefully built tech infrastructure and payment rails enable instant cross-border payments in a way that is really exciting for businesses,”

Verto co-founder Anthony Oduwole said.

Verto started as a currency exchange marketplace

The 2018-founded company aims to solve the problem of liquidity in cross-border trade within Africa. Since African currencies are not interoperable, African SMEs are forced to largely rely on the US dollar for cross-border payments, TechCrunch reported.

Verto, founded by Ola Oyetayo and Oduwole, was started as a currency exchange marketplace where users could exchange illiquid currencies into liquid pairs. It eventually branched into providing cross-border payments after raising US$2 million in a seed round in 2019, the report added.

The company’s key offerings include payments, exchange and multi-currency wallets, and claims to have over 2000 global clients.

The TechCrunch report noted that Verto has seen its users grow by 11x, with a growth of 8x in revenue, since the pandemic. Verto monetises its solution through commissions for its currency exchange service and price discovery marketplace solution. It will eventually work towards generating revenues from API calls and payments on the platform.

It also intends to increase currencies enabled on the platform to 51, the report said.

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