Finclusion Group, a fintech that leverages AI algorithms to provide financial services to African customers through a variety of credit-centric products, has raised $20 million in pre-Series A financing and equity funding.
Andela and Flutterwave co-founder Iyin Aboyeji (who invested through his VC firm Future Africa), LendInvest founder Christian Faes, and ComplyAdvantage founder Charlie Delingpole are among the round’s investors.
Amandine Lobelle, Jai Mahtani, Sudeep Ramnani, Jonathan Doerr, Richard Aseme (RCA Ventures), and Klemens Hallmann, to name a few, are among the others. Manuel Koser, Alexander Schuetz, Christian Angermayer, and Leo Stiegeler, among others, were investors in the company’s previous round.
Finclusion received debt funding from local currency funds in Eswatini and South Africa, which made up the majority of the entire round. It comes after Lendable, an emerging markets lending provider, provided a $20 million debt facility in September.
The fintech company plans to extend its operations in South Africa, Eswatini, Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania, as well as Mozambique and Uganda.
Finclusion has built consumer-facing credit products to bridge the credit gap in nations where it operates since its inception in 2018.
There’s SmartAdvance, where Finclusion provides solutions for employees’ financial well-being through employer relationships. Employees can take loans off the back of their paycheck, deduct from their payroll, and lend through employer partnerships with its wage streaming product, which offers payroll loans and future wage loans.
To date, the Africa-focused fintech has granted more than $300 million in loans to over 240,000 consumers. Following the Lendable debt capital issue in September, the company’s monthly disbursements have increased by 140 percent in the last 18 months. From December 2020 to December 2021, Finclusion’s loan book increased by 30%.
Despite this expansion, Finclusion only has 28,000 active loan customers, accounting for nearly 10% of the total customers it has served since 2018.