Enza, a payments infrastructure company serving banks and fintechs across Africa, has closed a $6mn Seed+ funding round, the company said on Tuesday, in a signal that investors see durable demand for the unglamorous back-end systems that power digital transactions on the continent.
The round was led by 4DX Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on Africa and the Middle East. British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance institution, joined as a new investor. Quona Capital and Algebra Ventures, which co-led Enza’s $6.75mn seed round in 2025, both increased their positions.
The raise is small by global fintech standards but notable for its composition. Two existing investors chose to double down after observing the business up close, while BII committed capital only after completing its own investment and environmental, social and governance due diligence—a process that can be slow and exacting for early-stage companies.
“Since our launch, we have been building the payments infrastructure partner African banks and fintechs have been missing,” said Hany Fekry, Group Chief Executive Officer of Enza. “Our existing investors have seen us deliver, and they have put more capital behind us to accelerate our growth.”
A gap in the market
Enza was founded in 2022 by former executives of Network International, the Dubai-listed payments processor that became one of the dominant players across the Middle East and Africa. Fekry, a former managing director at Network, and Hamish Houston, another ex-Network executive, launched the company after concluding that the incumbent’s model—focused largely on card acceptance and merchant acquiring—left a gap in comprehensive infrastructure for banks and fintechs, particularly in Africa.
The company’s pitch rests on a simple observation: for a bank, choosing a payments infrastructure partner is a decision with a long tail. It shapes which products the bank can offer, how it differentiates itself, and which markets it can serve profitably. Switching is costly, and regulators scrutinise outsourcing arrangements. Until recently, banks had limited options and were largely tied to legacy providers.
Enza offers a modern alternative: a single integration that connects banks to card schemes, real-time payment rails, mobile wallets and QR codes, while allowing the bank to retain control of its merchants and data. It integrates with local schemes such as Nigeria’s Verve, Egypt’s Meeza and South Africa’s AfriGo, as well as global networks including Visa and Mastercard. It also connects to domestic real-time infrastructure including Nigeria’s NIBSS, South Africa’s PayShap and Egypt’s InstaPay.
The company says it now serves bank and fintech clients across 12 countries. It has regional offices in Egypt, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria, and in September it launched commercial operations in Ghana after securing a Payment Service Provider Enhanced licence from the Bank of Ghana.
Why banks are buying
The competitive dynamics of African payments have shifted in recent years. Banks still hold the liquidity moat and the regulatory licences, but fintechs have won on user interface and product iteration speed. In Nigeria, for instance, fintechs such as Moniepoint, Paystack and Flutterwave built large merchant-acquiring businesses while banks ceded ground at the customer-facing level.
“Banks have realised they gave up too much ground to fintechs,” Houston told TechCrunch in 2025. “We want to give them the tech to compete and win it back”.
Enza’s model is to sell to the bank, not to compete with it for the end customer. Banks pay Enza on a per-transaction basis, and the company says contracted monthly volumes have been growing at 35 to 40 per cent month on month. At the time of its seed round, Enza had secured more than 10 million monthly contracted transactions through live bank partnerships across six African markets.
“enza enables banks to modernise via a single integration to enza’s platform while allowing banks to retain control of their merchants and their data,” said Daniel Marlo, Managing Partner at 4DX Ventures. “4DX led this round because we see that enza addresses a key gap in the ecosystem and the founders have done this before.”
Marlo’s reference to the founders’ track record is central to the investment case. Before launching Enza, the team worked with nearly 200 banks across Africa at Network International and its subsidiary DPO Group. That history has given them relationships with banks, card schemes and regulators that are difficult for a start-up to replicate.
The development finance angle
BII’s participation brings a different kind of validation. The UK institution, which has total net assets of £9.87bn and investments in more than 1,600 businesses across 66 countries, typically invests with a mandate to support inclusive economic growth and climate finance. In 2026 it unveiled a five-year strategy aimed at mobilising £9bn into Africa.
“enza provides banks and financial institutions with the modern payments infrastructure that they need to reduce costs, broaden payment options, and expand access to affordable and reliable financial services across developing markets,” said Chirantan Patnaik, Head of Disruptive Ventures at BII. “Our investment in enza reflects our focus on inclusive finance and supporting SMEs by tackling a major barrier: the high cost and complexity of digital payments infrastructure.”
The SME focus matters. Payments are often the first entry point into formal finance for small businesses, and the cost of accepting digital payments remains a barrier for many. Enza’s platform is designed to let banks offer low-cost in-person and online acceptance to merchants, creating a data trail that can later support lending, savings and insurance products.
Regulatory tailwinds and headwinds
Enza’s expansion plans are inseparable from the regulatory environment in its target markets. Egypt, where the company has a significant presence, has been tightening its payments framework. The Central Bank of Egypt issued dedicated rules in 2025 for Payment System Operators and Payment Service Providers, and existing institutions were given until June 2026 to regularise their status. The Financial Regulatory Authority has also been building a fintech licensing regime, granting preliminary approvals to companies testing solutions in its sandbox.
For a company like Enza, which sells into banks rather than directly to consumers, these frameworks are both an opportunity and a cost. Licensing requirements create barriers to entry that favour well-capitalised, compliant providers, but they also require investment in legal and compliance functions across multiple jurisdictions. Enza’s decision to secure a PSP Enhanced licence in Ghana—rather than relying on a bank partner’s licence—reflects a willingness to make that investment.
South Africa, another of Enza’s core markets, is preparing to give regulated non-banks a more direct route into its payments system, reducing their reliance on bank sponsorship. That reform could widen the addressable market for infrastructure providers, though it may also intensify competition.
A crowded field
Enza is one of those targeting Africa’s payments infrastructure. Interswitch, the Nigerian payments giant, has repositioned itself as a full-stack banking technology provider. Flutterwave, which 4DX Ventures has backed, has expanded from merchant acquiring into broader financial services. Moniepoint, now Nigeria’s largest merchant acquirer, processed transactions worth roughly $294bn in 2025. Global processors and core banking vendors also compete for bank technology budgets.
Enza’s differentiation lies in its focus on the bank channel and its willingness to integrate with existing core banking systems rather than replace them. That is a less capital-intensive model than building a consumer brand, but it depends on winning and retaining the trust of conservative financial institutions—a sales cycle that can be slow.
The new capital will be used to extend into new markets, secure additional licences, and continue investing in the product line. The company has not disclosed its valuation or revenue, and PitchBook data lists a $20mn Series A as “upcoming,” though the company has not confirmed any such plans.
For now, the Seed+ round gives Enza runway and, perhaps more importantly, a cap table that signals stability to the banks it is trying to sell to. In a market where the choice of payments partner is scrutinised by regulators and difficult to reverse, the identity and commitment of a vendor’s backers are part of the products.