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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT // EDITION 2
Building Investable Fintechs:
Why Proof Matters More Than the Pitch
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Founders think funding starts with the pitch. Investors know it starts long before that.
Reading time: 14 mins
16 July 2026
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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A South African fintech founder can have a real product, paying customers and a real problem to solve, and still struggle to raise capital. That doesn't always mean the business is weak. More often, it means the investment case is incomplete.
Founders say there isn't enough money. Investors say there isn't enough evidence. Both are telling the truth.
Anton Gaylard of Crossfin puts a number on it.
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The businesses that are not obvious “yeses” are not bad businesses. They're businesses still carrying too much doubt about distribution, the team, or whether enough customers will actually pay. In this market, ambition helps open the conversation, but proof is what keeps it going.
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Andre de Wet of Flood, currently raising an extension round for his own company, is even blunter about the founder's side of that equation.
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Two investors explain the bar, and two founders show what it takes to clear it, not with better pitches but with evidence.
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Evidence can be built and this edition is about how.
CONTRIBUTORS
NIC SMALLE
Partner,
Apis Partners
ANTON GAYLARD
Co-Founder & CXO,
Crossfin
ANDRE DE WET
Co-Founder & President,
Flood Pte Ltd
VINCENT MASEKO
Co-Founder & CTO, Akopay Inc.
“Less than 5% are slam dunks.”
Anton Gaylard, Co-Founder & CXO, Crossfin
“If you can't name the two or three things the money unlocks, with dates and owners, you don't want capital, you want comfort.”
Andre De Wet, Founder, Flood Pte Ltd
MEET THE CONTRIBUTORS
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NIC SMALLE
Partner, Apis Partners
Nic is a Partner at Apis. He has been with Apis for since inception and has led on transactions spanning Insurance, Asset Management and Payments.
Prior to joining Apis, he was at Old Mutual where he was responsible for OM’s Strategic Investment Fund, an on-balance sheet investment vehicle that focused on the expansion of Old Mutual’s operations into key African markets. Preceding that he was at Standard Chartered and McKinsey and Company.
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Nic has completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) postgraduate degree at INSEAD, and is also graduate of the University of Cambridge with a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in the field of Bioscience.
ANTON GAYLARD
Co-Founder & CXO, Crossfin
Anton Gaylard is Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Crossfin Technology Holdings, with more than 25 years of experience across technology, retail, eCommerce and M&A.
Prior to Crossfin, he ran the fintech portfolio at Capital Eye Investments, leading transactions including wiGroup, Emerge Mobile and Innervation Rewards, following earlier roles as Managing Director of Retail Automation, eCommerce pioneer at MWEB Business and COO of the Platinum Group.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Science from the University of Cape Town, majoring in Marketing and Economics (Hons).
ANDRE DE WET
Co-Founder & President, Flood Pte Ltd
Andre de Wet is the founder and CEO of Flood, where he builds and backs emerging market digital businesses focused on commerce infrastructure.
Over 20 years he has built and scaled digital platforms across Africa and Southeast Asia. He built Africa's leading price comparison marketplace and scaled it more than 700% year on year to a successful exit in 2015. He launched iflix's African operations across eight countries.
He also designed a super-app strategy adopted into Vodacom's mobile commerce roadmap and built fintech and card infrastructure in Southeast Asia.
VINCENT MASEKO
Co-Founder & CTO, Akopay Inc.
Vincent Maseko is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of AkoPay Inc., bringing over two decades of enterprise software engineering and leadership across some of Africa's leading financial institutions, including Old Mutual, FNB, and Discovery - has operated in diverse industries including government, telecommunications, and online gaming.
He is the chief architect behind AkoPay's 6-layer programmable money architecture - directly responsible for designing the platform's PAPSS-native double-entry ledger and the multi-signature group wallet infrastructure that underpins AkoPay's cross-border payment capability.
As the Founder of ZARoDebt, Vincent merges extensive corporate banking, 'Compliance-as-Architecture', and enterprise innovation experience with rapid startup execution speed.
APIS PARTNERS
A Good Business Is Not Always a Good Investment
A fintech can serve customers well, run cleanly, and still not be right for an investor. Nic Smalle explains what separates a good business from a good investment.
In conversation with Nic Smalle, Partner at Apis Partners
South African founders are building in a market full of problems worth solving, and plenty are building products customers genuinely use.
For Nic Smalle, that's where the conversation starts, not where it ends. A business can be useful, relevant and well run, and still not be right for an investor. The question isn't whether the business should exist but whether it can reliably return capital.
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INVESTORS ARE ASKING HOW THE STORY ENDS​
Founders think about the next thing, whether that's the next customer, the next hire or the next round. Investors think about the last thing, which is how they get their money back. To a founder, the exit can feel like a distant abstraction. To an investor, it shapes the decision from day one.
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Nic Smalle’s test is three questions. Can the business grow its key metrics (e.g. earnings, EBITDA, etc) meaningfully over the next four to six years; is there a clear set of future buyers who see strategic value and can afford to acquire the business; and can this team deliver those outcomes?
The South African market is sophisticated but it isn’t infinite, and a fintech can solve a real problem and still not be a good investment.
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THE FOUNDER IS PART OF THE CASE​
Investors want to know the person leading the company can manage risk, spend capital wisely and make good calls under pressure. Great founders are able to simultaneously have a detailed handle on the intricacies of their business, unit economics, customer pain points, cashflow and the like, and are able to recruit talented people and then effectively delegate to and empower these individuals.
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A pitch deck is a lovely thing, but it's just a starting point. Take the deck away and the case should still stand on clean financials, customers who stay, reference calls that hold up, and a team that can talk honestly about what went wrong and what they did about it. That last one matters more than founders expect.
Nobody needs an early-stage company to be perfect. They do need the founder to be self-aware. How you explain a rough quarter tells an investor more than a polished growth chart ever will.
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CAPITAL MUST UNLOCK SOMETHING SPECIFIC​​
Some founders are still pricing themselves off the 2021 to 2023 boom, when capital was cheap and growth forgave everything. That market is gone, even if you remember what a similar company raised at three years ago. The investor is asking whether your business can justify that number today, on earnings, margins, retention and the path to exit.
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“We need funding to grow” isn't an answer. What will the capital actually do? Improve margins, accelerate distribution, move the company toward profitability, make it more attractive to a future buyer? That's the question to walk in with.
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​​Know the numbers. Build the proof before you chase the valuation. Be clear on what the cheque unlocks. A fintech rarely gets funded on potential alone. Funding follows once that potential becomes something an investor can verify.
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THE LESSON: Founders need to think beyond the next round and understand how investors eventually get their return on investment.
“A good business is not always the same thing as a good investment.”
Nic Smalle, Partner, Apis Partners
“Investors are not immediately put off by what's not working, but they do need a team that are able to zero in on problems and proactively solve them.”
Nic Smalle, Partner, Apis Partners
“Money in translates to growth out.”
Nic Smalle, Partner, Apis Partners
CROSSFIN
Before Investors Back the Fintech, They Back the Founder
In a market this cautious, investors aren't just weighing the business. Anton Gaylard explains why the founder is the first signal, and why credibility is built before capital is requested.
In conversation with Anton Gaylard, Co-founder & CXO of Crossfin
Anton Gaylard has heard the complaint plenty. South African fintech capital, founders tell him, is hard to access. He doesn't dismiss it, but from where he sits at Crossfin, the question isn't whether the money exists. It's whether founders have given investors enough confidence to release it.
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The market here is sophisticated but small, and the customer relationships fintechs need are mostly already held by banks, retailers, telcos and platforms, so investors are careful and the upside has to be proven rather than assumed.
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VERY FEW BUSINESSES ARE OBVIOUS YESES​
Gaylard estimates that less than 5% of the fintechs he sees are slam dunks. The rest aren't bad businesses; they're businesses carrying doubt. Maybe it's an interesting product with unclear distribution, an ambitious founder with a thin team, or customers who like the idea but haven't paid for it. Your job, unglamorous as it sounds, is to shrink that doubt.
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THE FOUNDER IS THE FIRST SIGNAL​
Gaylard starts with the business itself, looking for a clear offering, paying customers, strong distribution and a meaningful market.
But he keeps coming back to the founder. At the early stage nothing is fully proven, so investors study the person instead. They're looking for someone who stays focused, adjusts without losing the plot, builds without burning capital, and knows the difference between conviction and overconfidence. None of that is soft; it's the investment case.
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CUSTOMERS ARE THE STRONGEST PROOF​
His advice isn't what founders want to hear. Raise as little as possible until the important metrics are proven. Before you ask investors, ask the market. The proof is customers who pay, who come back, and who choose you over what they already use. Customer revenue is hard-won, but it's honest. It proves demand in a way no deck can.​
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Plenty of founders raise too early, spend the money on hiring and marketing, and end up funding a search for the business instead of scaling one that works. And too many pitches dwell on the product, the faster platform, the better tech, when distribution is the real test here. A good product with no route to customers isn't a business, it's an invention.
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TRUST STARTS BEFORE THE RAISE​
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Uncomfortable to hear, especially if you're outside the established circles. And let's say it plainly: access isn't fair.
Warm introductions still open doors that cold emails don't. But the point isn't that introductions replace proof. It's that trust travels, and the stronger your evidence, the easier it is to move through those doors once they open. Which means relationship-building can't start the month the business needs money. Credibility gets built before capital gets requested.
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And when investors pass, they rarely give the full reason. Often it's that they don't yet believe the team can execute.
In South African fintech, ambition isn't rare and good ideas aren't rare, but confidence is. Investors back the founder before they back the fintech. Earn that, and the capital follows.
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THE LESSON: in a cautious market, founder credibility is part of the investment case.
“The more sound the opportunity, the more funding becomes available.”
Anton Gaylard, Co-Founder & CXO, Crossfin
“The importance of focus cannot be underestimated.”
Anton Gaylard, Co-Founder & CXO, Crossfin
“The best source of funding is from customers willing to pay for what you have to offer.”
Anton Gaylard, Co-Founder & CXO, Crossfin
“Who you know is important, a good referral goes a long way!”
Anton Gaylard, Co-Founder & CXO, Crossfin
FLOOD
How to Build the Trust That Funds You
Andre de Wet is raising an extension round for Flood right now, so none of this is theory. His message: the pitch gets you the meeting, but the preparation gets you the money.
In conversation with Andre De Wet, Founder, Flood Pte Ltd
Gaylard says who you know matters. Andre de Wet shows how to become known. He's raising an extension round for Flood right now, so none of this is theory. It's a founder describing the game from inside it.
Fundraising isn't a pitch competition, because the pitch only gets you the meeting. It’s the preparation that gets you the money.
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REMOVE THE REASONS TO SAY NO​
Founders often believe that the best story wins. Andre knows investors are trained to look for risk. Their job is to find reasons to say no. Yours is to remove those reasons before they harden into doubts. That starts with consistency between the deck, the model and the data room. Every data point must be telling one story.
Flood spent more time aligning numbers, assumptions and definitions across all three than it spent on the narrative itself, because that alignment isn't admin; it's the raise.
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START 12 TO 18 MONTHS EARLY​
Investor relationships aren't coffee and warm feelings, they're data points over time. An investor who sees the business at launch and again 90 days later is watching you execute. A single pitch is a snapshot, while a relationship shows the trajectory. So start conversations 12 to 18 months before you need the money, with short, honest updates that include the misses.
For South African and African founders this matters doubly, because plenty of investors are interested in these markets but are short on ground-level insight. Share what's actually happening and you become useful long before you ask for anything.
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KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR​
His readiness test is blunt. If the money landed tomorrow, would you know exactly where it goes? Which market, which partner, which hire? Flood's current raise is deliberately small and specific, tied to signed partners and named markets. The money isn't there to create a strategy. It's there to accelerate one that already exists.
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​TALK TO THE RIGHT INVESTORS, AND KEEP YOUR PROMISES​
Not every “no” is a rejection. If an investor doesn't fund businesses at your stage, your geography or your cheque size, they were never going to invest. Talk to founders one round ahead of you first. They know which investors are active, who ghosts, and whose “we're interested” rarely becomes money.
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And the second raise is a different conversation. The first asks, could this work? The next asks, why isn't it working faster? Investors compare your performance against last round's promises, which is why Flood swapped the giant TAM slide for a probability-weighted pipeline. The number is smaller, but it's also believable.
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CAPITAL SCALES WHAT IS ALREADY TRUE​
Andre's hardest lesson: Funding does not fix the business. It exposes what is already working, and what is not. If the model works, money makes it bigger. If it doesn't, money makes the problems bigger, more visible and more expensive. Fundraising isn't a rescue plan but a test of readiness, and funding follows the founder who has already done the work to reduce doubt.
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THE LESSON: Fundraising starts long before the round opens.
“The pitch gets you the meeting; the diligence-readiness gets you the wire.”
Andre De Wet, Co-Founder & President, Flood Pte Ltd
“One inconsistency between your deck and your model costs you more credibility than a mediocre slide ever will.”
Andre De Wet, Co-Founder & President, Flood Pte Ltd
“A single pitch meeting asks them to bet on a snapshot. A relationship lets them bet on a trajectory.”
Andre De Wet, Co-Founder & President, Flood Pte Ltd
“If you can't name the two or three things the money unlocks, with dates and owners, you don't want capital, you want comfort.”
Andre De Wet, Co-Founder & President, Flood Pte Ltd
AKOPAY
What Investors Saw in AkoPay
Most fintechs raise money to find customers. Vincent Maseko explains why AkoPay did the opposite, and how a zero-CAC distribution network changed the conversation.
In conversation with Vincent Maseko, Co-Founder. & CTO, Akopay Inc.
Vincent Maseko’s story shows what happens when the investment case starts coming together. Distribution before the raise, a team matched to the ambition, and a route to customers that AkoPay describes as coming at zero acquisition cost.
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AkoPay was never a quick consumer play. Maseko describes it as financial infrastructure for Africa, the ledgers, compliance systems and settlement rails that let money move accurately, legally and safely across markets. That takes capital because infrastructure has to be built properly from the start.
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DISTRIBUTION CHANGED THE CONVERSATION ​
Most fintechs raise money to go and find customers. AkoPay did the opposite. It built partnerships that could bring users onto the platform before the raise, including Village Savings and Loan Association groups in Ghana and a distribution opportunity in Eswatini. That flipped the pitch. Instead of asking investors to fund a search for users, AkoPay was asking them to fund infrastructure for users it already had a path to reach.
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THE MOAT, AND THE TEAM BEHIND IT​
Maseko expected investors to obsess over MRR and a working prototype. Instead they asked what makes this hard to copy. For AkoPay, the answer was the combination of technology, architecture, partnerships and distribution. A competitor can build software, but recreating relationships that open trusted channels across borders is another matter entirely.
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And it was never a solo-founder story. Pan-African infrastructure demands technical architecture, institutional relationships, financial strategy and public-sector understanding. The ambition was large; the team made it credible.
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WHY INVESTORS SAID YES​​
AkoPay's story isn't that funding was easy; it's that the conversation changed once the business could show distribution, infrastructure and a team capable of carrying the ambition. What investors saw was an opportunity that was easy to believe, built on a large problem, rails that are hard to replicate, and partnerships that cut the cost of growth. Investors were not only responding to the scale of the vision. They were responding to the fact that AkoPay had made the path to execution visible.
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THE LESSON: Distribution can turn a big vision into something investors can believe.
“We knew from Day 1 that to serve 54 nations and handle sovereign data, we needed institutional capital to fund the fortress.”
Vincent Maseko, Co-Founder & CTO, Akopay Inc.
“When you walk into an investor meeting with a zero-CAC distribution network, investment stops being a distant goal and becomes a mathematical certainty.”
Vincent Maseko, Co-Founder & CTO, Akopay Inc.
“For infrastructure platforms, investors care about your pipeline and your moats.”
Vincent Maseko, Co-Founder & CTO, Akopay Inc.
“Your IP and your architecture are your absolute highest leverage, distribution is how you win.”
Vincent Maseko, Co-Founder & CTO, Akopay Inc.
Before you raise, can you answer these six questions?
FOUNDER CHECKLIST
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What does the money unlock?​
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Which customers are already paying or committed?
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What does it cost to acquire and serve them?
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Who are the right investors for your stage?
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What is your route to distribution?6.Why could this business become valuable to a future buyer?
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INDUSTRY REFLECTION
Build the Business First
Four conversations about fundraising, and the pitch deck barely came up. What investors actually fund, and why the answer matters even if you never raise.
Final thoughts from the FinTech Association of South Africa
Access to capital remains one of the biggest challenges facing South African fintech founders. The market is smaller than many would like, exits are less obvious, and warm introductions still open doors that cold outreach often can't. That reality matters, but it isn't the whole story.
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Let’s start with the most uncomfortable finding: the pitch deck matters less than founders think. Not one of the four people in this edition credited a deck for a cheque. What moved money was relationships built over 12 to 18 months, updates that included the misses, referrals that travelled, and numbers that told one story from deck to model to data room. Investors don't fund documents. They fund people they've watched execute.
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The advice isn't one-size-fits-all either. Gaylard's test, get paying customers before you raise, is right for most fintechs. But some businesses need capital before the first customer can exist. You can't build settlement rails on revenue you don't have yet. AkoPay raised before scale and got away with it because it arrived with something just as convincing, namely signed distribution partnerships and a route to users at zero acquisition cost. Proof of demand, or proof of a path to it. Investors may accept either. What they are unlikely to accept is no clear proof at all.
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Which brings us to the real point of this edition, and it's bigger than fundraising. Read the advice back. Know your numbers, prove customers will pay, build relationships before you need them, secure your route to market, and spend money on what moves the business. None of that is a performance for investors, though. It's simply how you build a company that works.
For most fintechs, follow these principles and success comes with or without a round; funding just changes the speed. And for the few that can't get off the ground without capital, these same principles are what unlock the cheque in the first place. Either way, the conclusion is the same. Don't set out to build an investable fintech. Set out to build a good business.
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When you do the fundamentals right, the funding conversation changes.
Investability is the side effect.
FEATURED IN THIS EDITION
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APIS PARTNERS
Founded in 2014, Apis was built on a simple conviction: that investing in financial infrastructure and services creates both strong returns and tangible impact.
From offices in London, Dubai and Singapore, they have deployed over $1 billion across three funds into businesses reshaping financial infrastructure and services globally.
Their focus is consistent and deliberate: backing businesses that sit at the intersection where technology enables efficiency and reach but where value is driven by durable and scalable business models.
This positioning underpins both their investment approach and their exit discipline.
FLOOD
Flood's SuperApp-as-a-Service offering presents a compelling solution for telcos and banks in emerging markets to transform their large customer bases into thriving, monetized ecosystems.
By seamlessly embedding Flood's marketplace directly into their existing applications, partners can unlock new revenue streams and defend against global competitors.
CROSSFIN
Crossfin invests in high growth and established cash generative businesses, offering investors a blended exposure
to technology investments in Fintech.
The Crossfin group is uniquely positioned to unlock real value through the organic and acquisitive growth of their ecosystem and the continual introduction of additional products and services through their various platforms.
Crossfin aims to influence technology across the value chain from point of processing to point of fulfillment, either directly or through partnerships.
AKOPAY
AkoPay is Africa’s programmable money layer; a single, open financial infrastructure platform built from the ground up to unify the continent's fragmented financial ecosystem across 54 nations.
More than a consumer’s payments app, AkoPay combines a PAPSS-native cross-border settlement rail, multi-signature community banking for VSLA groups, and an institutional-grade retail infrastructure marketplace.
By bridging consumers, merchants, governments, and the global diaspora, AkoPay serves as the ultimate transaction engine and capital markets gateway for Africa.
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