South African POS Provider TallOrder Secures $3m In Additional Series A Round
TALLORDER, a South African producer of superior cloud-based point of sale (POS) systems for the SME sector, has announced that it has raised an additional R47 million ($3m)in Series A funding.
The funding was raised from current investors, including Investec Private Capital, as well as a consortium managed by Nurture Investment Management, an Africa-focused fintech investment business (“Nurture”).
The funding will be used to help the company grow and develop new products.
“Developing a robust, feature-rich and widely adaptable cloud POS solution takes a lot of development effort, both in terms of money and time. Investors have been keen to invest in the next generation of cloud-based point of sale systems, as the global market is vast and the growth opportunities massive” said Dana Buys, CEO and co-founder of TallOrder.
Why The Investors Invested
“We are pleased to make this significant investment into what we believe is a category-defining software-as-a-service company alongside Dana and the existing shareholders. We look forward to supporting the African — and ultimately global — expansion of TallOrder over the next few years,” Nurture’s co-founder and managing partner, Tatenda Mutizwa, said.
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A Look At What The Firm Does
Launched in 2014 by Anna Groenewald and Daniel (Dana) Buys, TallOrder is the producer of superior cloud-based point of sale (POS) systems for the SME sector.
TallOrder can be installed on Windows, iOS, and Android devices that are compatible. A fully integrated e-store for those who want to accept take-away orders and deliver for free, a robust interactive order management display system, configurable customer-facing displays with QR-Code payment support, and digital signage for dynamic in-store advertising are among the add-ons.
TallOrder can be used by shops, service providers, and hospitality firms in Africa.
A cloud-based solution, according to Buys, is ideal for SMEs with limited internet technology (IT) skills who are focused on running their businesses and may not have the time or resources to deal with internet security, on- and offsite backups, disaster recovery, and keeping software, databases, and integrations up to date.
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TallOrder has equally built a solid solution for the 10 to 100 room hotel/lodge/resort/guest house business in the international market by forging extensive integrations with the main cloud hospitality property management systems.
As hotel operations are rebuilt following the tremendous impact of the Covid 19 outbreak, Buys claims that this large sector is quickly embracing the benefits of the cloud solutions on offer.
TallOrder has demonstrated its market fit in South Africa, African countries such as Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and the Seychelles, as well as Asian markets such as Indonesia, according to Buys.
Most US cloud POS providers, according to Buys, are primarily payment processors, whereas TallOrder has taken a merchant-centric approach, integrating with popular payment platforms like SnapScan, Zapper, MasterPass, Yoco, ThumbzUp, MTN MoMo, Innervation, African Resonance, NetCash, DPO, and PayFast, to name a few.
According to Buys, “For the Sub-Saharan Africa market we had to build a cloud POS with solid offline capacity, as the continent’s internet tends to be slower, more expensive, and less reliable than that of developed countries, where the cloud access is fast, cheap and always-on. We have focused on building deep integrations to the popular SME local cloud accounting systems from Xero and Sage, as well as to local loyalty and reward systems.”
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer