Nomba, a payment services provider aimed at African businesses, has raised $30m for its pre-Series B funding round.

The investment was led by San Francisco-based Base10 Partners, with commitments also coming from Helios Digital Ventures, Shopify, Partech and Khosla Ventures.

Nomba is on a mission to create a bespoke payment solution for African businesses. It stated that despite growth in digital payments across Africa, most companies only have access to generic point-of-sale machines for transactions. These machines operate in isolation from the rest of the business operations.

This pre-Series B capital will enable Nomba to build payment solutions that are aimed at specific services that companies provide. It claims this will allow them to plug gaps in their payment processes, operate more efficiently and improve customer experiences.

As an example, restaurants could access menus, manage inventory, receive payments and conduct other business functions through the hardware. Elsewhere, transport and logistics companies could use the solution to directly connect their transactions to payments, creating a more seamless experience that increases sales and profitability.

Nomba is starting in Nigeria and will offer a variety of business tools. These include invoicing and order management solutions to improve efficiency and reduce cost of operations for businesses across the continent.

Funds from the pre-Series B round will also help Nomba expand across Africa and other markets.

Nomba CEO and co-founder Yinka Adewale said, “We see payment as a business model, not just a product and we want to make it easier for businesses to take advantage of all that is possible in their payment processes to support their continued growth and success.

“We have a long list of products we have been working on and the funds we have raised as well as the investors that have backed us gives us a lot of confidence about what can be achieved with more effective payment solutions in the hands of business owners.”