Kenyan fintech Pezesha bags $11 million in fresh funding

Oluwajuwonlo Afolabi -

Pezesha, a Kenya-based fintech enabling access to working capital for small and micro-scale businesses and women entrepreneurs in Africa, has raised $11 million in its pre-Series A funding round led by Women's World Banking Capital Partners II, with participation from other investors.

  • The debt financing raised by the fintech is part of its growth strategy which will see it expand its embedded finance offering into Uganda and Ghana. It aims to widen access to funding for millions of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across its operating markets.
  • Founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa, Pezesha provides a digital lending infrastructure that allows both traditional and non-traditional financial institutions to offer working capital to MSMEs. It uses its API to enable reliable information and quality and responsible borrowing in the finance space.
  • It works with Twiga and MarketForce which integrate its credit scoring API to offer real-time loans to their customers. It currently works with 20 partner companies and has extended loans to over 100,000 businesses to date.
  • The fintech plans to create $100 million in financing for businesses annually by accessing investment opportunities from local and international banking institutions, high net-worth individuals, and decentralized finance.
  • Talanton and Verdant Capital Specialist Funds invested $5 million in the debt funding round, with Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, cFund, and Input Output Global (IOG) participating in the raise.