Kiaan Pillay on fintech start-up Stitch and its R1-billion funding round

Loading player...
Cape Town-based fintech start-up Stitch last month caught the attention of many people when it announced it was raising R1-billion (US$55-million) in a significant series-B funding round.
Co-founder and CEO Kiaan Pillay is our guest in this episode of the TechCentral Show, where he tells TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the funding round, which was led by QED Investors with participation from a range of new and existing investors.
The latest round brings Stitch’s total funding to date to nearly R2-billion, or $107-million.
In this episode of the TechCentral Show, Pillay unpacks:
• His background and why and how Stitch was founded;
• How well-known South African comedian Trevor Noah became one of the participating funders in the latest funding round;
• What Stitch is doing differently to other fintech and payment start-ups that has allowed to raise the quantum of funding that it has;
• The significance of Stitch’s recent acquisition of Exipay – and why it’s important for Stitch to be a player in the in-person payments market;
• Stitch’s plans in the cryptocurrency space; and
• Why the company is focused (for now) on the South African market.
Don’t miss a great discussion!
7 May 2025 7AM English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

Money just became native to the internet - Steven Boykey Sidley

Steven Boykey Sidley has been a chief technology officer at a Fortune 500 company, a private equity investor, a videogame designer, a jazz musician and, for the past four years, a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg. He is a partner at Bridge Capital, heading its futures advisory,…
12 Aug 7AM 45 min

TCS+ | Specops' Darren James on continuous trust in an AI world

Specops Software’s Darren James explains why identity checks alone no longer stop determined attackers. Traditional approaches to access security no longer hold up in hybrid, cloud-first environments – and AI is widening the gap. In this episode, host Kevin Smith speaks to Darren James, senior product manager at Specops Software,…
7 Aug 4AM 45 min

TCS+ | Why South African workers must become supervisors of digital labour

ADG’s Cliff de Wit on why the next management challenge is overseeing teams of autonomous software agents. Not long ago, organisations were experimenting with generative AI to draft e-mails, summarise documents and answer questions. Today agentic AI is changing what the technology is for. In a conversation on TechCentral’s TCS+…
31 Jul 4AM 43 min

Icasa's rules skip the real bottleneck: ACT

Communications regulator Icasa’s draft rapid deployment regulations – a critical intervention for the sector – risk failing unless the regulator brings municipalities into the process, according to Nomvuyiso Batyi, CEO of the Association of Comms & Technology (ACT). Speaking on the TechCentral Show with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod, Batyi said…
30 Jul 4AM 29 min

How Optasia lends billions to people banks can’t see

Optasia is on target to distribute more than US$6-billion in credit across its markets in 2026 – and it carries every cent of the default risk itself. In this episode of the TechCentral Show, CEO Salvador Anglada unpacks how the JSE’s biggest recent fintech listing actually works. Formerly known as…
23 Jul 9AM 25 min