South African fintech company Yoco has secured a $100 million credit facility from US investment firm Victory Park Capital to expand working capital financing for small businesses using its payments platform.
Announced on November 9, the facility will fund Yoco Capital, the company’s embedded finance business, which provides merchant cash advances based on transaction activity generated through Yoco’s payment systems.
The financing gives Yoco greater control over the capital used to support its merchant lending operations and provides additional capacity to extend advances to businesses across retail, hospitality and services.
Yoco has been providing working capital to South African entrepreneurs since 2018 through partnerships with specialist SME credit providers. The company says it has disbursed more than R6.5 billion to over 40,000 merchants during that period.
It currently serves more than 200,000 small and independent businesses. Victory Park Capital
Yoco Chief Executive Carsten Holtkemeyer said the facility would allow the company to take greater control of the financing component of its business.
“We’ve spent a decade building an operating system that runs a merchant’s whole business, payments, point of sale, and now the decisions in between. Financing was the one layer we didn’t fully control. This facility changes that,” Holtkemeyer said. Victory Park Capital
Unlike conventional business loans, Yoco Capital uses transaction information generated through merchants’
