Stitch Raises the Bar Yet Again with Second Major Acquisition of 2025
Stitch provides an API platform that enables businesses to build secure, user-friendly financial products.
Cape Town-based fintech Stitch isn’t slowing down. Just months after closing a R1-billion (~$55 million) Series B round, the company has announced its second major acquisition of the year: Efficacy Payments.
Co-founded by Kiaan Pillay and Priyen Pillay in 2021, Stitch has now raised $107 million in total funding and is quickly becoming one of South Africa’s most ambitious fintech infrastructure players. With this latest move, the company has become one of the first fintechs in the country to offer direct card clearing for both online and in-person payments–without relying on intermediary banks.
From Fintech to Full-Service Acquirer
With Efficacy under its belt, Stitch now operates as a financial services gateway, switch, and acquirer in one. That means merchants—whether they’re running multi-lane retail stores or telco platforms—can now rely on a single provider for everything from compliance to technical infrastructure.
Efficacy, founded in 2016 and designated as a clearing system participant in 2021, was one of the first South African fintechs to achieve that status. Bringing that capability in-house allows Stitch to bypass traditional acquiring banks, reducing points of failure and enabling faster, more seamless transactions.
Omnichannel Ambitions Take Shape
This move builds on Stitch’s January 2025 acquisition of ExiPay, which helped the company branch out from online payments into in-person transactions. Today, Stitch offers a truly omnichannel payment platform aimed at modernizing checkout experiences across both digital and brick-and-mortar environments.
As a designated clearing system participant now directly connected to Visa and Mastercard, Stitch is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for Africa’s next-generation commerce.
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Listen to Kiaan Pillay with Jenny Fielding on the Venture Everywhere podcast: A Stitch on Payment Time. Now on Apple & Spotify and check out all our past episodes here!
