Uganda’s lending startup, Numida has raised a US$2.3 million seed funding round led by MFS Africa for expansion and launching new products.
Most of the micro and small businesses in Africa do not have access to digital banking services. As much as these businesses drive economic growth and contribute up to one third of the continents’ GDP, their size and informality makes it hard for them to gain access to credits and other financial services.
Founded in 2017 by founders Mina Shahid, Catherine Denis and Ben Best, Numida began by partnering with traditional microfinance institutions providing them with tools that could lend unsecured credit to semi-formal businesses.
After making several iterations 18 months ago, Numida pivoted to offering direct loans to these businesses to enable them to grow. Normally, these types of businesses acquire credits from family, loan sharks and informal money lenders who offer the poorly designed consumer credit. Some of these businesses opt to get loans from the traditional microfinance institutions which only provide credits when one has all the requirements needed.
Via the Numida mobile app, business owners can acquire unsecured working capital loans of up to $3,500 depending on their credit scores. So far, Numida has provided more than US$2 million in unsecured credit to 3,000 micro and small businesses in Uganda with outstanding collections, repayments rates and client retention.
MFS Africa has committed itself to supporting Numida offer a lending solution to all the micro and small businesses in Uganda. In addition to this, Numida plans on expanding its operations in Uganda and also pilot in a new market. All the data collected from the small businesses will enable them to provide additional financial services via Numida app .These services will include making payments, micro-insurance and deposits in the future.
The MFS Africa’s experience alongside the use of infrastructure will enable Numida to launch new digital financial products for micro and small businesses. This platform will benefit a large number of micro and small businesses in Uganda thus leading to economic growth.