UK-based cross-border payments platform, Leatherback has announced today its Pre-Seed
funding round deal worth $10 million, attracting funding from Zedcrest Capital, a leading pan-
African principal investment firm. The funding will allow the growing Fintech company to
focus on critical activities, including hiring strategic roles, elevation in its marketing and
branding strategy, and traction and visibility in the market.

Leatherback offers a multiple currency solution that allows businesses and individuals to
conduct global transactions quickly and efficiently through its digital payments infrastructure
while being committed to promoting business expansion and removing barriers to business
growth across continents.

Co-Founder and CEO Ibrahim Toyeeb says, ‘Some of the funding will be deployed to raise
Leatherback’s profile in the Fintech arena as well as extend its capacity in the many
countries it’s licensed in and where it is about to be approved. These include South Africa,
Egypt, Uganda, India, and the UAE.”

“Building local capacity is not easy, yet it is core to how we operate at Leatherback. The
capital injection will further strengthen the value we provide by ensuring a solid presence
and infrastructure so we can offer solutions directly to customers with better pricing,” he
says.

Before receiving the pre-seed funding, Toyeeb and his partner funded the operation
themselves. “This is the first time we have raised funds externally. It’s a massive step
forward that will allow us to take our business and our vision to the next level.”

Toyeeb says that Zedcrest Capital is familiar with the opportunity Leatherback is pursuing. “It
has seen first-hand the bottlenecks around global commerce and banking opportunities for
companies in frontier markets once they have operations or ambitions beyond their
immediate geography.”

Zedcrest Capital’s Group Managing Director, Adedayo Amzat, says: “As principal investors,
we love opportunities where we can bring our expertise to bear. It has been rewarding to
provide operational and strategic support to Leatherback in its quest to build the perfect
compliance, technology, and finance infrastructure that will allow it to be the operating
system of choice for the global mobility of businesses and individuals.”

Leatherback will benefit from operational and strategic support provided by Zedcrest Capital.
The guidance will help enhance the company’s quest to position itself as much more than a
global neobank or payment platform. “We intend to provide all the tools businesses need to
achieve a truly global presence,” notes Toyeeb.

The CEO’s primary ambition is for the digital payments platform to become a single one-
point solution for businesses with access to tools to improve their global presence. This will
include identity verification, payment processing, and even capital lending to scale across
multiple markets.

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