Nigerian fintech startup Indicina has raised US$3 million in seed funding round to accelerate its expansion into other African markets.
The funding round was led by Target Global with participation from Greycroft and RV Ventures. Ricardo Schaefer, Partner at Target Global will also join the Board.
The startup, which is building API-driven credit infrastructure for Africa will also use the funding to reinforce its key product offerings, build more products for Consumer credit recommendation, and bolster its infrastructure.
Africa has a poor credit infrastructure and low risk innovation. Only 11 per cent of its population have their credit information recorded by private credit bureaus vs 16 per cent in East Asia and 47 per cent in Latin America and among African banking customers, only 17 per cent have consumer loans, less than half of those with a transaction product. This massive consumer credit opportunity requires technology and credit risk innovation that most lenders currently don’t have.
Indicina’s products enable a competitive digital offering backed by strong data and analytics capabilities for more efficient customer acquisition and risk assessment. Indicina’s enterprise customers are digitising customer journeys with greater speed, and its fintech customers are leveraging the usue of APIs for their embedded finance offerings.
”We are firm believers that access to credit is a core facet of financial inclusion and are excited to back Indicina, whose goal is to ensure that eligibility for loans will no longer be determined by incomplete creditworthiness assessments.” Partner, at Target Global, Ricardo Schäefer said.
The growth of digital financial services is accelerating on the continent, with non-bank players leading the charge (notably telcos and fintechs). This includes a maturing digital payment infrastructure and more open banking startups providing improved datasets for digital lending. Companies need to build increasingly innovative applications that leverage the data exhaust. Indicina’s architecture sits on top of customer data infrastructure providing deeper insights and allowing customers to go to market faster with more innovative products.
Partner, Greycroft Will Szczerbiak said ”Limited access to credit in Africa is a data problem, not a creditworthiness problem. We are unlocking opportunities by eliminating the complexity associated with accessing the data necessary to make underwriting decisions. We are excited about Indicina’s ability to expand the breadth of financial services available to consumers and businesses across Africa.”
