The 27four Nebula Fund has obtained secondary exposure to Peach Payments through a transaction with Launch Africa Ventures, expanding its participation in African financial technology and digital commerce infrastructure. The deal gives the South African venture fund access to a payments company that supports merchants across online, mobile, and in-store channels. It also highlights the growing use of secondary transactions to create liquidity for early investors while enabling new institutional capital to enter scaling African technology businesses.
Secondary Transaction Expands Investor Access
The transaction involves Launch Africa Ventures, an early investor in Peach Payments, transferring part of its exposure to the 27four Nebula Fund. Launch Africa said it first backed the company during its seed round in 2021, when Peach Payments was primarily serving smaller South African businesses. The company has since broadened its merchant base and geographic footprint, with operations and expansion activity spanning South Africa, Kenya, Mauritius, Eswatini, and several West African markets.
Peach Payments’ Expanding Platform
Founded in Cape Town in 2012, Peach Payments provides payment acceptance, processing, reconciliation, and merchant enablement tools for businesses operating across Africa. Its platform supports cards, instant EFT, digital wallets, buy now, pay later options, mobile money, subscriptions, payouts, and point-of-sale solutions. By bringing multiple payment methods and channels into one platform, the company aims to reduce the complexity merchants face when selling across fragmented African payment markets.
Growing Importance of Secondary Liquidity
27four Principal Tishanya Naidoo said the secondary deal gives the Nebula Fund access to a high-growth company operating in a critical area of African commerce infrastructure. She added that Peach Payments’ development aligns with the fund’s focus on scalable, technology-enabled businesses with strong market potential and wider economic impact. As digital sales, cross-border trade, and hybrid online-offline commerce grow, reliable payment systems are becoming increasingly important for merchants seeking to improve conversion and expand into new markets.
Launch Africa Managing Partner and co-founder Zachariah George said secondary liquidity is essential to the continued maturation of the African venture ecosystem. He argued that liquidity events can help encourage greater participation from limited partners and angel investors by demonstrating clearer pathways for capital recycling. The firm said its partnership with 27four represents an example of how early-stage investors can realize partial returns while allowing new investors to support companies through later stages of growth.
Nebula Fund Strategy
The investment fits within the 27four Nebula Fund’s broader mandate to back technology-enabled African businesses with scalable models and meaningful social or economic relevance. Launched in May 2023, the sector-agnostic fund targets companies around the Series A stage that have validated their market concepts, strong teams, and potential for disruptive growth. Through its exposure to Peach Payments, the fund is investing in infrastructure that may help businesses process transactions more securely and efficiently as digital commerce becomes more established across the continent.
27four is a South African investment management and financial services group that develops investment solutions for retail and institutional investors, including access to private markets. Launch Africa Ventures is a pan-African early-stage investor with more than 180 portfolio companies across two funds and operations spanning 25 African countries. Its portfolio covers sectors including fintech, healthtech, agritech, logistics, edtech, and enterprise software, with investments generally ranging from seed to pre-Series A stage.
The Peach Payments secondary transaction illustrates a shift in African venture capital toward more flexible mechanisms for investor liquidity and portfolio participation. For 27four, the deal provides exposure to a payments infrastructure company positioned within the continued expansion of digital and cross-border commerce. For Launch Africa, it creates a partial liquidity opportunity while retaining the broader role of early-stage capital in supporting African technology companies from their earliest stages.