Our Story
One wedding, one group chat, and one very persistent question.
Our origin
Squared started with a wedding in Cape Town.
Co-founders Nathan van Niekerk and Nanga Ntsume were planning a trip back to Cape Town for a close friend’s wedding. A group of friends were travelling together, so Nathan and Nanga took on the job of organising some of the shared arrangements.
At first, it felt simple.
Work out the costs. Split them between the group. Send the bank details. Get everyone paid up. Then get on with the trip.
It did not stay simple for long.
Some people paid straight away. Some said they had paid, but it was difficult to tell which payment belonged to whom. Others forgot. Bank details had to be sent again. Amounts had to be repeated. Messages disappeared inside a busy group chat.
Before long, Nathan and Nanga were checking transactions, keeping track of who still owed what, and sending the kind of reminders nobody really enjoys sending to their friends.
What should have been part of the excitement of going home for a friend’s wedding started to feel like administration.
That was the frustrating part.
The technology already existed to book a flight in seconds, order a car from your phone, or send money across the world. But collecting money from a group of friends still meant moving between WhatsApp, banking apps, notes, spreadsheets and screenshots.
And usually, one person in the group had to carry all of it.
During that trip, Nathan and Nanga kept coming back to the same question:
Why is this still so difficult?
What if you could create one place for the group, send one link into the chat, and from that point everyone knew what they needed to pay, who had paid, and what was still outstanding?
No repeating bank details. No searching through transactions. No spreadsheet. No awkward follow-ups.
As they started looking closer, they realised the same problem appeared everywhere.
Friends organising holidays. Families collecting for important occasions. Teams collecting fees. Colleagues buying group gifts. Communities running stokvels.
Different groups, different reasons, but the same underlying problem.
Squared was built from that experience. Not because paying was difficult, but because everything around the payment was.
We believed there had to be a simpler way for groups to organise money without one person carrying all the admin.
Our mission
Make money between people simpler.
Some of the most important things people do happen as a group. Trips, celebrations, teams, communities, families and shared plans all depend on people organising around each other.
Money is often part of that.
We want it to feel like the easiest part.
Our mission is to remove the unnecessary friction around collecting and coordinating money between groups, so people can spend less time managing payments and more time on what brought them together in the first place.
What we believe
Keep it simple.
If we can remove a step, we should. Complexity belongs behind the product, not in front of the person using it.
Build around real behaviour.
People already organise their lives in group chats. We do not want them to learn a new way of behaving just to use Squared.
Make money less awkward.
Following up with friends, family or colleagues about money can be uncomfortable. Good product design should reduce that tension.
Make things clear.
People should always understand what they are paying, what has happened, and what still needs to happen.
Respect people’s time.
Nobody wants to become the unpaid administrator of their friend group, family or team.
Stay useful.
We would rather do a few things exceptionally well than add features simply because we can.
That’s the whole story, really. A wedding, a group chat, and a spreadsheet nobody asked for.
If you’re the friend who always ends up organising — we built this for you. Enjoy the trip this time.
Nathan & Nanga
Squared. One link. Everyone pays.