Cape Town-based Revio, a payments API company, has raised $1.1 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round to solve payment failures in emerging markets.

Led by SpeedInvest, with participation from Ralicap, The Fund, Two Culture Capital and strategic angel investors from Sequoia Capital, Quona Capital and Circle Payments, Revio says the investment will enable the firm to launch new products, expand the team and enter new markets. . This is Revio’s first round of institutional funding since its hidden release in March 2021.

Founded in 2020, Revio helps businesses reduce revenue loss due to failed payments and customer churn. With three core products, Payment Coordination, Invoice Automation, and Smart Collections, Revio enables businesses to offer multiple payment options, automate invoices, and manage customer churn. client. Revio also provides customers with full visibility with real-time customer segmentation and analytics dashboards to enable them to monitor live acquisition efforts and increase customer lifetime value.

According to Revio, the fragmented payments landscape in Africa, higher dispute rates, invalid or expired card details, false positive fraud checks and insufficient funds lead to the failure of up to 30 % of digital payments in Africa. The global average is 0.7%. According to a company statement, “An estimated $14 billion in recurring revenue goes uncollected each year, and the continent has a 320% higher churn rate than mature markets.”

“Having been part of multiple payment orchestration and billing automation platforms across the world, we can see the incredible potential of using this toolset to increase revenue recovery for businesses in a region where three out of ten payments fail. With a team as experienced as Revio’s at the helm of tackling this massive opportunity we’re convinced that they can fundamentally change the payments landscape for businesses in their target markets and are excited to be backing them on that journey.”

                     Alvaro Perezcano, FinTech Investor at SpeedInvest, Revio’s lead investor.

Since Revio started operations a year ago, the company says it has had a list of more than 50 customers. Revio’s corporate clients include insurance companies, telecommunications operators, retailers, subscription software and media companies, finance or rental companies, and alternative lenders. position. The company says its products have been popular with businesses with recurring revenue with high transaction volumes.

Revio’s API allows businesses to accept and reconcile over 30 payment methods. Including:
leading mobile money products, card systems, direct banking and wallets in 25 countries in the African market. The company plans to expand its services to Latin America.

“Customers are treated like gold when they are being acquired and like criminals when they fail to pay. We’re building a better collections system, where businesses can recover earned revenue while treating customers fairly and with empathy.”

                                                                                                       Nicole Dunn, Revio’s COO.

“Revio is building a category-leading product to enable businesses to better manage their cash flow and accelerate growth”, adding that Revio “will play a critical role in contributing to the growth of subscription commerce and companies with pan-African scale.” 

                                       Revio investor, Hayden Simmons, partner at RaliCap Ventures.

“We have ambitions to build a global business that helps businesses reduce failed payments and recover the revenue they’ve earned. We know that growing a business is hard, but getting paid shouldn’t be. I’m excited to partner with our investor community to accelerate our growth and the value that we deliver to our customers,”

                                                                                                        Ruaan Botha, Revio CEO.