Cardtonic (The Tonic Technologies LTD)
“Can a bootstrapped African consumer gift-card app become the cross-border spend and dollar-access rail for African consumers and SMBs?”
Founded2019
HQLagos, Nigeria
Total raised$2.1M
Latest roundSeed, 2025
IndustryFintech / Consumer banking
The story
Cardtonic was bootstrapped from 2019 as a consumer gift-card trading app for the Nigerian market, growing to 1.5M+ users and 5M+ downloads. In 2025 the company raised its first outside capital — a $2.1M seed — specifically to launch Pil by Cardtonic, a B2B spend-management platform, marking a strategic move from consumer fintech into enterprise financial infrastructure for African businesses. The parent, The Tonic Technologies, now positions itself as a cross-border payments and financial-solutions builder rather than a pure gift-card exchange.
Product timeline
2019
Cardtonic founded in Lagos as a gift card trading platform· launch
2022
Expanded into virtual dollar cards, bill payments, and gadget commerce· product
2024
Launched Virtual Bank Account (Naira) and Universal eSIM products· banking
2025
Closed $2.1M seed to launch Pil by Cardtonic, a B2B card spend-management platform· pivot
2025
Introduced USDT/USDC card funding for virtual dollar cards· crypto
Regulated entities
2
regulatory licences held by Cardtonic (The Tonic Technologies LTD)
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
0 layers disclosed in Cardtonic (The Tonic Technologies LTD)’s embedded-finance stack
Accounting gap: significant