Duplo raises $4.3m seed funding to boost B2B payments system
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Duplo, a Nigerian business-to-business (B2B) payment platform that enables business transactions between African businesses, has raised $4.3 million in seed funding to launch new products and expand its B2B footprint across Nigerian business enterprises.
The company said the seed funding was supplied by a coalition of 45 investors and angels including Liquid2 Ventures, Soma Capital, Tribe Capital, Commerce Ventures, Basecamp Fund, and Y Combinator. Oui Capital, an existing investor, also re-invested after participating in the previous round.
The capital injection, according to Duplo, is underpinned by a significant period of growth since going live in January 2022, resulting in an increase in the number of businesses on its platform by 1,000 percent.
The company also claimed to have traction with Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) distributors and finance teams of midsize and enterprise businesses, helping them to digitise and simplify transactions between them and business partners.
“FMCG distributors can onboard retailers in their network on the Duplo platform, making it easier for them to collect payments digitally and access real-time insights into business performance. They can also automate payments to vendors, manufacturers and suppliers, with instant payments enabling them to transact in larger quantities,” the company stated.
Commenting on the development, Yele Oyekola, CEO and co-founder of Duplo, said business-to-business payments have largely stayed the same in Africa in recent years despite the extensive innovations seen in consumer payments.
“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,” Oyekola said.
On his part, Peter Oriaifo, principal at Oui Capital, remarked that the Duplo team has built an incredible suite of products that improve how businesses make and receive payments from each other. He also commended the growth recorded by Duplo since the initial pre-seed investment by Oui Capital in 2021, noting that it is for this reason the company is excited to back Duplo once more.
Duplo is a Nigerian B2B payments platform that offers an end-to-end solution that automates the back-office processes of generating and processing invoices, receiving and approving bills, collecting and disbursing funds and completing account reconciliation.
The platform works 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.