South African Startup, Talk360 Raises $3 Million In New Seed Funding, Hits $7M Total Seed Mark

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) startup, Talk360 has had its total investment up to $7 million, after it raised an additional $3 million few months after the initial close of its $4m seed round.

The new investors of the South African startup in the seed round are Allan Gray E2 Ventures (AGEV), Kalon Venture Partners, E4E Africa, Endeavor, existing lead investor HAVAÍC, and a number of angel investors including Tjaart van der Walt and Coenraad Jonker.

The company in a statement said it would use the new funding to launch a pan-African payment platform in 2023, while it will use it to grow its VoIP market share. It also plans to use its payment platform to integrate “all payment options” on the African continent, in the process creating a diverse pool of localized payment options, to make it seamless for international and local businesses to sell to buyers residing in Africa.

The company emphasized on this in a statement when it said that “the new platform will allow users across the continent to buy products and services using any currency and more than 160 payment methods. It will also be opened to other merchants.”

Talk360 had in an earlier interview with TechCrunch said its decision to be a payment aggregator was predicated on the earlier setback it had in the implementation of digital payment options, with the challenges affecting the the bottom line of its internet calling business.

The company’s co-founder and managing director for Africa, Dean Hiine, had while speaking to TechCrunch inferred that its conversion rate was affected by the lengthy and complex processes of the scattered existing digital payment methods in Africa.

But Hiine is hopeful that the startup payment platform will now give more people across the African continent the leverage to make international calls through its app. Users can make calls on the Talk360 platform at a fee, but the platform is built in such a way that only the person who initiates the call will need the app, a smartphone and internet to make calls, with the receiver not necessarily needing either of them.

“Our mission is to bridge distance and connect lives by offering reliable, affordable, and easy-to-use digital services, delivered in a localised manner to all communities, particularly emerging countries, so they can connect to the world,” said Hiine.

Talk360 also has a retinue of agents, including PesaPoint in Kenya and Flash in South Africa,  allowing millions of users purchase airtime vouchers from over 750,000 physical points of sale.

“But we’re not just solving socio-economic issues: we’re also offering micro-entrepreneurship and income generating opportunities to our growing network of agents across the country.”

In 2022 alone, its internet calling app has connected 2.3 million people worldwide, and attained a 167% growth in customers and 130% in revenues, the company says, noting that the app has active users in over 170 countries including South Africa, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

The managing partner of HAVAIC, a lead investor in the seed round, Ian Lessem, while justifying its massive investment in the startup said:

 “We invested more into Talk360 based on its strong progress in the South African market to date, as well as its potential in the rest of Africa. Since our first investment, the company has shown spectacular growth, and a genuine ability to crack the challenge of distribution in Africa. We’ve seen the company convert users to paying customers by offering them relevant services, and making this accessible in an easy, affordable, reliable and trustworthy way,” said HAVAÍC managing partner.