Key Takeaways
- • Yoco Technologies secured a $100mn credit facility from Victory Park Capital Advisors to expand financing for its small-business merchant network, per a company statement from CEO Carsten Höltkemeyer.
- • Terms of the facility, including pricing and maturity, were not disclosed.
- • The facility is debt, not equity, and does not change Yoco's shareholder register; Yoco has raised more than $170mn from investors including TPG, Dragoneer and Partech.
- • Yoco says it has disbursed more than R3bn (about $160mn) through its Yoco Capital merchant cash-advance product since its 2018 launch, so the facility is large relative to that programme.
- • The deal reflects a wider push by global private credit managers into emerging-market fintech lending, against a backdrop of an estimated ZAR350bn MSME financing gap in South Africa.
Summary
Yoco Technologies, a Cape Town-based payments and software company backed by TPG, has secured a $100mn credit facility from Victory Park Capital Advisors. According to chief executive Carsten Höltkemeyer, the funds will be used to provide finance and cash advances to the company's network of more than 200,000 merchants. Terms of the facility, including pricing and maturity, were not disclosed. The transaction is a private credit deal, meaning debt arranged directly by a non-bank investment firm rather than raised through public bond markets or syndicated bank loans.
Yoco was founded in 2015 and has raised more than $170mn from investors including TPG, Dragoneer Investment Group and Partech. The company's merchant finance product, Yoco Capital, launched in 2018. It offers eligible merchants a cash advance repaid automatically through a percentage of card sales rather than a fixed monthly schedule. Yoco describes the product as carrying no interest rate, no collateral requirement and no late-penalty regime, instead charging a flat fee with repayments adjusted to sales. Eligibility is based on Yoco transaction history, and merchants must have been on the platform for at least six months. Yoco says it has disbursed more than R3bn, or about $160mn, through the programme. Yoco is not a licensed deposit-taking bank and funds its lending from its balance sheet or credit partners.
The deal comes as South African policymakers and development institutions focus on a persistent small-business credit gap. According to the International Finance Corporation, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises generate about 34 per cent of GDP and 60 per cent of jobs, yet only about 5 per cent of formalised MSMEs have access to credit. The OECD estimates the MSME financing gap at ZAR350bn. Structural factors contribute, including the National Credit Act's treatment of many businesses with turnover below R1mn as consumers, along with thin credit records and limited collateral. Fintech lenders argue that alternative data, such as card-sales histories, can help underwrite businesses banks find difficult to assess.
Victory Park Capital, founded in 2007 and headquartered in Chicago, specialises in private asset-backed credit and became a majority-owned affiliate of Janus Henderson in 2024. Its fund documents cite about $5.6bn in assets under management as of October 2025, and it has invested more than $11bn across 235 investments since inception, according to a fund prospectus. The IFC committed $50mn to a Victory Park fund in 2025, and IDB Invest has backed the same strategy, which targets debt financing for fintech lenders serving MSMEs, with a particular focus on Mexico and Colombia. The Yoco facility extends that emerging-market fintech exposure into South Africa. For Victory Park, the transaction follows a separate $100mn facility to US construction lender Billd.
For Yoco, the facility supports its push beyond payments into lending at a time when competition among South African SME lenders is intensifying. The deal also illustrates the willingness of global private credit managers to finance fintech loan books in emerging markets. Such exposure can diversify developed-market corporate credit holdings but carries risks tied to small-business credit performance, currency movements and the evolving regulatory treatment of fintech lenders in South Africa.
Yoco was founded in 2015 and has raised more than $170mn from investors including TPG, Dragoneer Investment Group and Partech. The company's merchant finance product, Yoco Capital, launched in 2018. It offers eligible merchants a cash advance repaid automatically through a percentage of card sales rather than a fixed monthly schedule. Yoco describes the product as carrying no interest rate, no collateral requirement and no late-penalty regime, instead charging a flat fee with repayments adjusted to sales. Eligibility is based on Yoco transaction history, and merchants must have been on the platform for at least six months. Yoco says it has disbursed more than R3bn, or about $160mn, through the programme. Yoco is not a licensed deposit-taking bank and funds its lending from its balance sheet or credit partners.
The deal comes as South African policymakers and development institutions focus on a persistent small-business credit gap. According to the International Finance Corporation, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises generate about 34 per cent of GDP and 60 per cent of jobs, yet only about 5 per cent of formalised MSMEs have access to credit. The OECD estimates the MSME financing gap at ZAR350bn. Structural factors contribute, including the National Credit Act's treatment of many businesses with turnover below R1mn as consumers, along with thin credit records and limited collateral. Fintech lenders argue that alternative data, such as card-sales histories, can help underwrite businesses banks find difficult to assess.
Victory Park Capital, founded in 2007 and headquartered in Chicago, specialises in private asset-backed credit and became a majority-owned affiliate of Janus Henderson in 2024. Its fund documents cite about $5.6bn in assets under management as of October 2025, and it has invested more than $11bn across 235 investments since inception, according to a fund prospectus. The IFC committed $50mn to a Victory Park fund in 2025, and IDB Invest has backed the same strategy, which targets debt financing for fintech lenders serving MSMEs, with a particular focus on Mexico and Colombia. The Yoco facility extends that emerging-market fintech exposure into South Africa. For Victory Park, the transaction follows a separate $100mn facility to US construction lender Billd.
For Yoco, the facility supports its push beyond payments into lending at a time when competition among South African SME lenders is intensifying. The deal also illustrates the willingness of global private credit managers to finance fintech loan books in emerging markets. Such exposure can diversify developed-market corporate credit holdings but carries risks tied to small-business credit performance, currency movements and the evolving regulatory treatment of fintech lenders in South Africa.
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