MultiChoice-backed Moment raises $22 million to fix Africa’s fragmented payments problem

Moment, a pan-African payments startup that processes 600,000 transactions every day, has closed a $22 million Series A round, bringing its total funding to $55 million since it launched three years ago.

The fintech, which supplies payment infrastructure to some of Africa’s largest businesses, closed the round with AlphaCode Venture Partners as the lead investor. It also secured continued backing from existing investors, General Catalyst and MultiChoice, alongside new investment from Canal+, the French media giant that completed its acquisition of MultiChoice last year.

Canal+’s participation is particularly notable because the company now has a direct financial stake in the very payments infrastructure serving its own DStv and streaming customers across the continent. It’s a telling sign of how media companies are increasingly looking to own the full financial journey of their subscribers, from content all the way to collection.

CEO Joel Yarbrough said the company is already serving 10 million people a month across some of Africa’s leading brands, with an in-person acceptance network spanning over two million physical locations. “We process 600,000 transactions a day despite power and connectivity problems that plague the market,” he said.

The funding will go toward deepening Moment’s network, enhancing its platform, and accelerating its continental expansion.

Why fixing Africa’s payment fragmentation is worth that amount to Moment

The problem Moment is trying to solve is one that any business operating across multiple African markets knows intimately. There is no single payment method that works everywhere.

Africa is not one single payments market. Each region has its own dominant method. South Africa has a highly banked population, yet most transactions still happen in person at shops. Nigeria relies heavily on instant bank transfers, though cash, cards, and mobile wallets all remain common.

Across East and Francophone West Africa, mobile money has gained the upper hand, but it is split among dozens of operators with no single provider connecting them all. Taken together, this fragmentation across different payment systems is exactly the kind of gap a payments company might be positioned to fill.

For a business trying to collect payments across three or four African markets simultaneously, that fragmentation is not just inconvenient; it is an operational nightmare that requires multiple integrations, multiple reconciliation processes, and significant engineering resources just to accept money from customers.

Moment’s pitch is a single platform that handles all of it. Omni-channel collection tools, embedded financial services, and support for locally preferred payment methods in each market, built to keep functioning even when the power goes out or the network drops.

Since its launch three years ago, the company has quietly become the infrastructure layer behind some of the continent’s best-known brands. The $22 million gives it the runway to go wider.

Also read: MultiChoice profits jump 160% in H1 under Canal+ ownership as turnaround takes hold