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Shuttered SC university sued over allegedly owing bank nearly $3.5 million. March 30, 2026 3:50 PM Gift Article Limestone University, which closed last year, was sued in federal court recently for owing millions of dollars on an unpaid loan, a lawsuit filed by First National Bank of Pennsylvania alleges. The shuttered Gaffney university took out a $3.5 million promissory note from the bank in 2021, the lawsuit says. Now, Limestone University owes First National Bank more than $3.4 million for the unpaid loan, late fees and interest, according to court filings. The lawsuit and court proceedings will set the process allowing Limestone University to sell its property, said attorney Rick Mendoza. Mendoza said he will represent the university and approved asset receiver, which is expected to be Aurora Management Partners, the Maynard Nexson attorney said. "This is a positive thing," Mendoza said Monday afternoon. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Spartanburg on March 24. The complaint also names the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a defendant. The First National Bank of Pennyslvania is being represented by attorneys at Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein. Limestone University voted to close its doors in April 2025. The school notified its primary lenders, the First National Bank of Pennsylvania and the USDA, that it could not meet its financial obligations anymore, according to court documents. The bank is worried about its collateral, including "the maintenance and security of the now-abandoned facilities of the university, the preservation of cash collateral, and the oversight of earnest money and deposits of potential buyers of defendant Limestone's facilities and/or online programming." The private Cherokee County school first opened in 1845 and graduated its final class in May 2025. A phone call to Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein's office with questions about the lawsuit was not returned Friday.

SA's littlefish closes $9.5M to drive merchant infrastructure for African banks. Reading Time: 2 mins read South Africa-based fintech infrastructure, littlefish, the merchant operating system powering the relationships between Africa's biggest banks and the merchant class, today announced the close of a $9.5 million Series A round led by Partech, with participation from TLCOM, Flourish Ventures, and Proparco. The round marks a significant milestone in the company's mission to transform how financial institutions serve small and mid-sized businesses across the continent. littlefish's platform sits at the intersection of banking infrastructure and commerce enablement. Its commerce layer consolidates point-of-sale applications, back-office CRMs, merchant portals, payments, and APIs into a unified orchestration layer that integrates directly into POS devices and core banking systems. Serving tier 1 financial institutions as clients, including Standard Bank, First National Bank (FNB), and Absa, littlefish enables banks to offer fintech-grade merchant services at scale while preserving ownership of the merchant relationship. The company also has a key partnership with Visa, which has embedded littlefish's platform into the card payment institution's small business onboarding strategy. Littlefish's monthly recurring revenue has grown 30x since its seed round. "This raise is a validation of our belief that the best way to serve Africa's small businesses is to work with the institutions they already trust, not around them," said Brandon Roberts, Co-Founder and CEO of littlefish. "We've proven the model in South Africa, and this capital gives us the runway to deepen those relationships and bring what we've built to millions more merchants across the continent. The little guys deserve world-class financial infrastructure, too, and we're building it." With the new capital, littlefish is significantly growing its team, accelerating product development, and scaling its go-to-market operations. The company will deepen its relationships with existing South African banking clients and merchants while expanding its footprint to more than 10 additional African markets, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. "littlefish has done something rare: it has built indispensable infrastructure and convinced Africa's most powerful financial institutions to stake their merchant businesses on it," said Matthieu Marchand, Principal at Partech. "With the deep trust littlefish has already established in South Africa and a clear path to expansion across more than 10 markets, we believe the company is positioned to become the defining merchant infrastructure layer for the continent. We're proud to lead this round and support the team as they scale." "When we backed littlefish at the seed stage, we believed in the team's vision for what bank-embedded merchant infrastructure could become in South Africa and other emerging markets," said Ameya Upadhyay, General Partner at Flourish Ventures. "Since then, they've built deliberately, earned the trust of the largest institutions on the continent, and created a platform that banks need. Participating in this Series A round was an easy decision. littlefish's traction speaks for itself, and we're excited to see what comes next."