Konnect Networks: Profile of a Tunisian Payments Startup

Konnect Networks is a Tunis-born fintech that began by helping Tunisian merchants accept online payments and has since repositioned itself as a supplier of payment infrastructure to banks, payment institutions and telecom operators. Its trajectory shows how Tunisian payment startups adapt to a market where the central bank tightly controls who can hold customer money.

Konnect Networks at a glance

• Founded: 2021, by Amin Ben Abderrahman, who is also CEO.
• Base: Tunis; the company's website also lists offices in Paris and New York.
• Investors: Attijariwafa Ventures, Visa, Renew Capital, Digital Africa Ventures, Utopia Capital Management, 54 Collective, Plug and Play and Sunny Side Venture Partners, according to Wamda and Daba Finance.
• Regulatory status: describes itself as a payment facilitator licensed by the Banque Centrale de Tunisie (BCT), and the first to receive that licence.

From payment gateway to orchestration

Konnect's first product was a payment gateway for Tunisian businesses. Merchants could accept local and international cards, e-Dinar postal cards and Konnect's own wallet, through:

• payment links sent by SMS, email or messaging apps;
• e-commerce plugins for platforms such as WooCommerce and PrestaShop;
• an API for custom integrations.

By 2025 the company described itself as a payment orchestration platform covering online and point-of-sale payments, payment aggregation and real-time transactions. Speaking to Wamda in May 2025, it claimed month-on-month growth of over 20% and a 4% share of Tunisia's e-commerce market within three years. These are company figures that we could not check independently.

For the wider merchant landscape, see our guide to e-commerce payments in Tunisia.

Funding

Konnect's funding came in several steps:

• July 2024: an undisclosed investment from Fuzé, the early-stage programme of Digital Africa, backed by the French development finance institution Proparco.
• December 2024: a $1.5 million round reported by Launch Base Africa, led by a consortium including Attijariwafa Ventures, Renew Capital, Digital Africa Ventures, Sunny Side Venture Partners, Plug and Play Africa and 54 Collective. It was Renew Capital's first investment in Tunisia.
• May 2025: Wamda reported Attijariwafa Ventures' participation in a multi-investor round alongside Utopia Capital Management, Visa and others, without giving an amount. It is not clear from public reporting whether this is the same round as December 2024 or an extension.

Visa's presence on the cap table matters: Konnect also announced a partnership with Visa to extend payment services to unbanked and underserved users. For the broader funding picture, see our startup funding trends.

The licence question

Konnect says it was the first company to receive a payment facilitator licence from the BCT. That status sits below a full payment institution licence. In January 2024, the BCT published guidelines for payment facilitators that require them to work in partnership with a licensed acquirer (a bank, La Poste or a payment institution) and to report quarterly to the central bank. The guidelines cover governance, risk management, anti-money laundering, sub-merchant relations and guarantee mechanisms.

In practice, a facilitator signs up and serves small merchants while settlement runs through a licensed partner. It is a lighter path into the market, but it keeps the startup dependent on banks. Our explainer on payment institutions in Tunisia sets out the difference.

The 2026 pivot: infrastructure for others

Konnect's current website reads less like a merchant gateway and more like a software vendor. It presents the company as "sovereign payment infrastructure" for banks, payment service providers and payment institutions, offering:

• white-label wallets and ledgers with regulatory limits by customer profile;
• agent banking tools for cash-in and cash-out networks;
• international remittance connectors (the company lists Western Union, MoneyGram, Ria, Zepz, TapTapSend and MyEasy Transfer);
• KYC, compliance reporting and reconciliation tools.

The site names Tunisie Telecom's Kashy wallet and the payment institution Viamobile as production clients. Press coverage of Kashy's launch in March 2026 credits Tunisie Telecom and Viamobile, which holds the BCT licence, but does not mention Konnect, so its role rests on the company's own account. Clients operate under their own licences, and Konnect supplies the technology.

Why it matters

Konnect's shift reflects a pattern seen elsewhere in Africa: in heavily regulated markets, selling software to licence holders can be easier than holding the licence yourself. Several developments in 2026 make that strategy timely:

• telecom operators are entering mobile money (Tunisie Telecom's Kashy, Ooredoo's OFT Tunisie);
• the BCT's TUNPAY label pushes wallet issuers toward common standards;
• the number of licensed payment service providers keeps rising.

The risk is concentration: a vendor that depends on a few large clients is exposed if any of them change course. Figures here reflect public information available as of October 2026.