Zanifu, a Kenyan fintech startup, has secured $1 million in Seed funding to extend its MSME lending services across Africa.
The Investment came from Saviu Ventures, Launch Africa Ventures, Sayani Investments as well as a number of angel investors from Kenya and Nigeria. The total funding gotten by Zanifu now stands at $1.2 million.
Founded in 2017 by Steve Biko and Sebastian Mithika, Zanifu provides short-term stock-financing of up to $2,000 to MSMEs in Kenya and is eyeing an additional 15,000 FMCG retailers in the next one year. Additionally, it has to date extended 85,000 working capital loans worth over $13 million to 7,000 businesses. It is presently looking to expand to Ghana and Uganda.
Zanifu partners with a number of manufacturers and distributors to extend the credit to these small businesses with retailers already sourcing products from the startup’s partners qualifying for the financing.
The startup has created platforms for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers that ensure seamless ordering, payment, tracking and fulfillment.
Retailers borrow through Zanifu’s loan app, where they upload information that includes historical purchase data. The retailers are then assigned a credit limit, after its algorithm scores them, within six hours after signing up. Retailers have up to a month to pay back the loans, which attract an interest rate of 3.5 to 5%.
“We serve FMCG retailers, especially the ones that are too small to access traditional bank finance for their businesses. The only option these MSMEs have has been digital consumer loans, which are not always suitable for them. We are filling a critical gap in providing stock financing, which enables small businesses to grow their turnovers by more than 40%,” said Zanifu CEO Steve Biko.
“The FMCG segment has the highest working capital needs within MSMEs, and the velocity of the goods they sell allows us to safely underwrite unsecured business credit to them.”
