A London-based cross-border payments platform has raised £7.6 million in pre-seed funding.
Leatherback attracted the funding from Zedcrest Capital, a leading pan-African principal investment firm.
It will allow the growing FinTech to hire in strategic roles, elevate its marketing and branding strategy, and boost traction and visibility in the market.
Leatherback offers a multiple currency solution that allows businesses and individuals to conduct global transactions quickly and efficiently through its digital payments infrastructure while being committed to promoting business expansion and removing barriers to business growth across continents.
“Some of the funding will be deployed to raise Leatherback’s profile in the FinTech arena as well as extend its capacity in the many countries it’s licensed in and where it is about to be approved,” said co-founder and CEO Ibrahim Toyeeb. “These include South Africa, Egypt, Uganda, India, and the UAE.
“Building local capacity is not easy, yet it is core to how we operate at Leatherback. The capital injection will further strengthen the value we provide by ensuring a solid presence and infrastructure so we can offer solutions directly to customers with better pricing.
“This is the first time we have raised funds externally. It’s a massive step forward that will allow us to take our business and our vision to the next level.”
Toyeeb said Zedcrest Capital is familiar with the opportunity Leatherback is pursuing: “It has seen first-hand the bottlenecks around global commerce and banking opportunities for companies in frontier markets once they have operations or ambitions beyond their immediate geography.”