Goodwell Investments, an impact investment firm, has invested an undisclosed amount in South African-based enterprise payments platform provider, Nomanini.

The investment in Nomanini is the second on-the-ground investment made by Goodwell Investments in South Africa from its €50m uMunthu fund, which is targeting startups and high growth companies in the financial inclusion and fintech space in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Wim van der Beek, Managing Partner at Goodwell Investments, said: “We expect a lot from their platform and their team. We only invest in companies and teams that have demonstrated a strong capability and growth potential. That is the case with Nomanini.”

Van der Beek added that Goodwell’s core criteria included not only the impact of the solution but also its ability to scale, something it had seen in Nomanini.

“We believe Nomanini could become a global provider of a range of services for the informal retail market. It provides a solution that can be applied in all “majority markets”, though in Africa alone the sheer size of the addressable market is attractive,” he said.

“Nomanini’s micro-payment platform is flexible and can grow with its clients to include not only airtime but also insurance, energy and other services to improve access to affordable products and services for low income households,” he added.

Nomanini’s platform enables transactions in the cash-based informal retail sector, enabling enterprise prepaid distributors to bolster their distribution channels, add to their portfolio of transaction services, increase their access to informal market consumers and efficiently monitor micropayments and services via a scalable cloud-based platform.

The company has in total raised capital of over $2.3m, and scaled enterprise partnerships in Ghana and Mozambique.

Nomanini’s Pan-African partnerships have enabled thousands of merchants to supplement their income, processing over 800k transactions monthly.

Vahid Monadjem, CEO of Nomanini, said the funds and relationship with Goodwell will be used to build towards a larger funding round to fuel the company’s growth.

“Goodwell is an ideal investor to bring on board at this juncture. They have a proven track record investing in innovative financial services companies, experience supporting fast-scaling teams, deep networks in the fintech sector and share our values to bring services to the underserved,” he said.

Goodwell currently has close to €100m assets under management, with 18 portfolio companies in Africa and India that serve more than 9 million clients.

The firm has high growth ambitions, and is aiming to significantly expand its footprint and assets under management in Africa in the next five years.

“We believe that we can contribute to a better world by offering people better economic opportunities. That drives our business. But our criteria and processes are the same as with regular private equity and venture capital. Our track record demonstrates that. Our returns are excellent, better than many other VC funds,” Van der Beek said.