Numida, a Ugandan-based fintech has announced that it has secured $12.3 million in a funding round led by Serena Ventures with $12.3 million with support from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital, Y Combinator, and MFS Africa and Lendable Asset Management.
Numida was founded by three Canadian Y Combinator graduates Mina Shahid, Catherine Denis, and Ben Best in 2015 to support semiformal micro and small businesses with digital working capital loans of between $100 to $5000 disbursed via mobile money.
Numida plans to use the funds to expand into other African markets like Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, and Kenya and also raise loans offered to an additional 10,000 businesses to hit its 40,000 targets within the next 18 months.
“Our initial process was simple: How do we provide the best form of working capital to excluded people?” CEO and co-founder, Mina Shahid in an interview with Insider said,.
“It’s important because these people have been forgotten by traditional financial services and the major challenge for economic development is financing for businesses.”
Shahid says the company’s teams are split between Kampala, Uganda, and various remote locations on the west coast of the US. Funding will go towards further hiring on Numida’s product development team in Uganda alongside a CFO and potentially a head of a credit risk.
“It’s been a fascinating experience building a tech product for people who have never used a computer before. Everyone can understand an interface in the valley but we’ve had to unlearn what a user interface is and have spent a lot of time on improving our UX and customer journey,” Shadid added.
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