Peach Payments, a leading digital payments service provider based in South Africa, has announced a strategic collaboration with Kenyan-based conversational commerce and CRM platform, Sukhiba. This partnership aims to open up a novel sales avenue for South African merchants, enabling them to conduct sales directly through WhatsApp.
Established in Cape Town in 2012, Peach Payments has been at the forefront of offering comprehensive payment solutions that allow businesses to seamlessly accept, manage, and disburse payments via web and mobile platforms. Ranking as the second-largest online payment gateway in South Africa, Peach Payments has also made its mark in Kenya and Mauritius.
In a significant move to bolster its growth and expand its product range across the African continent, Peach Payments secured a US$31 million in a Series A funding round led by Apis Partners last year. Following this, in July, the company expanded its capabilities by acquiring the customer software development company, Operativa. The recent partnership with Sukhiba marks another step in Peach Payments’ ongoing expansion and diversification of services.
Sukhiba, co-founded in 2021 by Ananth Raj Gudipati and Abhinav Reddy, operates on the WhatsApp platform and has a presence in multiple countries including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Oman, and India. Catering to over 35,000 SMEs that interact directly with manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors, Sukhiba has also recently secured a US$1.55 million seed extension funding to further its reach across Africa and into other emerging markets.
Sukhiba’s innovative technology allows merchants to integrate their product catalogues into WhatsApp, facilitating a comprehensive range of services from product purchases, payments, to scheduling deliveries. Through this partnership, Peach Payments leverages its platform to enable WhatsApp as a new sales channel for its merchants, just in time for the Black Friday sales rush. This integration offers customers a variety of payment options including card payments, EFT, buy-now-pay-later schemes, and other alternative payment methods.
Rahul Jain, CEO and founder of Peach Payments, expressed enthusiasm about the partnership, highlighting the potential for this collaboration to revolutionize WhatsApp commerce and payments in South Africa. Ananth Raj Gudipati also shared his optimism, noting Peach Payments’ extensive knowledge and network as pivotal for accelerating commerce on WhatsApp.
Merchants interested in this service can register through the Sukhiba website and track their sales activity via both the Sukhiba merchant app and the Peach Payments dashboard. This arrangement promises daily or weekly sales reconciliation and fund transfers, depending on the merchant’s preference.
