Pezesha, an embedded finance fintech startup based in Kenya, has raised US$11 million in pre-Series A funding to help it expand into new markets in Sub-Saharan Africa and considerably scale operations in its current ones.
Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II, a gender-lens investment fund founded by US-based non-profit organization Women’s World Banking and managed by WWB Asset Management, led the funding round, which was a mix of US$6 million equity and US$5 million debt. Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, cFund, IOG, Talanton, and Verdant Capital Specialist were other strategic investors.
Pezesha, a B2B digital lending infrastructure founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa, targets providing affordable working capital to financially excluded SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Partners offer credit and other financial services to their merchant network at the point of sale by integrating seamlessly with Pezesha’s APIs. MSMEs receive real-time loan offers to buy stock and pay later through a straightforward but effective process powered by its credit-scoring APIs.
In addition, Pezesha is expanding the debt liquidity market by collaborating with smart institutional investors like IOG-Cardano. By overlaying DeFi liquidity channels on top of the scalable digital lending infrastructure, the alliance enables the business to access affordable funding.
“We are excited about bringing in institutional investors, led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II, to fuel our growth strategies and further our goal. We are equally thrilled that WWBCP II consciously invests in women since it enables us to solidify diversity in our growth strategies as a viable means of achieving our goal of developing Africa’s MSME financing infrastructure, said Moraa.
The additional funding will be utilized to expanding into West Africa and strengthening its position in East Africa.
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