Tyme Group is a South African company founded in 2019 by Tjaart van der Walt and chairman Coen Jonker and remains majority (40% stake) owned by Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital (ARC).
The company operates a hybrid digital banking model that combines online banking with physical service touchpoints, as per Tech Crunch.
Headquartered in Singapore, Tyme focuses on developing digital banks in growing markets by offering checking and savings accounts with debit cards, credit via buy now, pay later schemes, and cash advances, the platform added.
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The company currently has over 15 million customers across its two markets of South Africa and the Philippines. Its South African brand, TymeBank, has 10 million users, while in the Philippines, its brand, GoTyme, has 5 million users.
What is more, the company has raised over $400 million in customer deposits and given more than $600 million in financing to small businesses across both markets.
The company recently raised $250 million in a Series D funding round. The funding round, which includes investment from Latin America’s most valuable fintech, Nu Holdings, has seen the company’s valuation rise to $1.5 billion, Tech Crunch reported last month.
This makes the company the latest African company to reach unicorn status. The rest are Flutterwave, Opay, Wave, Interswitch, Chipper Cash, Fawry, Andela, MNT-Halan and Jumia. Meanwhile, Tyme is eyeing an IPO in New York by 2028 and plans for a secondary listing in South Africa.
“Nubank revolutionized financial services, and having them as a shareholder will help build rapport for our model, execution, and expansion plans, both financially and through business counsel. We are focused on improving the financial lives of millions of people in our region, and we are energized by this round of investments to keep pushing forward,” said Coen Jonker, Chairman and co-founder of Tyme.
“Since the beginning of Nubank, we have believed that the future of financial services globally is of digitally native companies. We have met dozens of teams across different geographies, and we think that Tyme Group is extremely well-positioned to be one of the digital bank leaders in Africa and Southeast Asia. We are excited to work with Tyme to share many of our learnings of scaling this model to hundreds of millions of customers,” added David Vélez, founder and CEO of Nubank.
