Finclusion and Lipa Later are African fintech that has announced their pre-Series A funding rounds. Finclusion in its pre-Series A round raised $20 million in a mix of equity and debt funding while Lipa Later raised $12 million.
The 2 African startups have raised a sum of $32 million to further enhance their fintech solutions across Africa.
Finclusion and Lipa Later
Finclusion
This is a startup that drives financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa with the use of AI-powered and data-driven lending. It was founded in 2019 and has its HQ in Mauritius. Investors in the round include
- Andela and Flutterwave co-founder Iyin Aboyeji (who invested with his VC firm Future Africa)
- LendInvest founder, Christian Faes
- ComplyAdvantage founder, Charlie Delingpole
In addition, Klemens Hallmann, Jai Mahtani, Sudeep Ramnani, Amandine Lobelle, Jonathan Doerr, and Richard Aseme (RCA Ventures) were not left out.
The company says it uses in-house proven successful advanced proprietary AI algorithms to prevent fraud and grant credit. In addition, it plans to expand into South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Eswatini, and also Uganda, and Mozambique.
Lipa Later
This is a Kenyan buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) startup that has a total of $16 million in funding (with the recent pre-Series A) since its inception in 2018.
The pre-Series A round, which is also a mix of equity and debt has a list of investors that includes
- GreenHouse Capital and Lateral Frontiers VC (they also led Lipa Later’s seed investment round)
- Sayani Investments and Axian Financial Services
- Cauris Finance, SOSV IV LLC
Lipa Later intends to use the funds to grow its existing markets in Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and also expand into new countries. It is looking to expand into Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa.
The company started with the provision of finance for mobile phone purchases and later expanded to other retailing areas like furniture, electronics, and home appliances.
Lipa later is primarily operating online but offers offline solutions for small retailers and merchants who are yet to have an online presence.
