The East African country of Kenya is the next item on our fintech investments series for 2021. Like its west African counterpart, Nigeria, it is proving to be a fintech hotbed in the continent, employing accessible and cheap tech to attract customers and demonstrating it is a forced to reckon with.
Below are the country’s top 5 from the previous year:
1. AZA Finance: The largest, non-bank in Africa powering the FX behind Africa’s trillion-dollar growth starts off Kenya’s list. It will be a decade old next year and is a leading provider of cross-border payment solutions supporting businesses in over 115 markets. AZA Finance is the only fintech which proffers an array of FX, treasury and payment services for international and Pan-African companies. In 2021, It raised $20 million from a Series B funding round.
2. Asante Financial Services Group: This is a Neo bank, a credit-led Neo bank whose main focus is on MSMEs (Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises), approving loans to them on its digital lending platform. Founded in 2020, it raised a $7.5 million in Series A funding for expansion in the African continent.
3. Kwara: Launched three years ago, the fintech proffers a banking platform that is digital, secure and affordable for SACCOs (Savings and credit cooperative societies) and their members, a segment of society not usually catered to by traditional banks. Kwara raised $4 million in a seed round to create a neobank app, thus allowing individuals to sign up with their choice of credit unions to gain access to different financial services.
4. IMFact: The smart finance for SMEs fintech was founded in 2019 by its parent company, Cardano Development, an incubator and fund manager based in Amsterdam. IMFact is a non-deposit taking financial institution using supply chain financing to offer operating capital to disadvantaged SMEs. Last year, it secured $3.9 million in seed funding to further deploy capital to its list of ever-growing customers.
5. WapiPay: Bringing up the rear in this list is the fintech referred to as the first African-Asia payment platform. It is also the third on the list founded in 2019. WapiPay bypasses traditional payment networks, and its users can choose their preferred delivery channels options – bank to bank, wallet to wallet, bank to wallet, wallet to bank to transfer funds and make merchant payments. It raised $2.2M pre-seed funding to help diversify its products and drive growth.
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