Union54 offers a card-issuing API that lets African software companies create and manage debit cards without needing a bank or external processor. The company launched in October and participated in Y Combinator’s summer 2021 batch. Since launch it has issued slightly over half a million virtual debit cards and says processed volumes have reached double-digit millions of dollars. Revenue in its first month was a little under $3,000, rose 600% in November, and has grown roughly 50% month-on-month thereafter. Union54’s founders say the product revealed broader payments challenges—long settlement times and difficulty sourcing dollars—that a card-issuing platform alone cannot fully solve. To address that, the company plans to create a domestic/continental card scheme and is engaging central banks toward pilots and settlement frameworks. Union54 builds a card-issuing API that lets African software companies issue and manage debit cards without relying on a bank or third-party processor. Co-founders Perseus Mlambo and Alessandra Martini launched Union54 this year as a spinoff from their challenger bank Zazu and the company graduated from Y Combinator’s summer batch. Union54 has over 50 companies in its API sandbox, four customers live in production issuing virtual cards, and the average time to go into production is three to nine days; the CEO said the company is earning revenue and currently transacts more than Zazu did after its first ten months. Partners and early customers include Flutterwave, Payday, Plumter and Bitmama. The company operates with a lean team of about 10 distributed across Nigeria, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Europe. Union54 plans to use the new funding to hire across engineering, product, marketing and sales and to expand its regional customer base while positioning to raise a Series A in the coming months.

Total raised

$15M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Apr 2022