A pan-African venture capital fund, Ventures Platform Fund IV LP, has led a $2.5 million seed round for the Dubai-based fintech company Credable. The investment also included participation from Launch Africa, MAGIC Fund, ACASIA Ventures, AAIC Investment, Adaverse, Emurgo Africa, and other strategic angel investors.
With its present presence in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Pakistan, Credable will use this funding to expand its team and market footprint throughout Africa and the MENASA area.
“The shift to ubiquitous digital banking and embedded finance has never been more evident in our markets,” Credable’s CEO, Nadeem Juma, said. “Our Seed Round represents a significant milestone that will support our continued mission to transform the digital banking landscape in our markets and for Credable to be the enabler of access to the banking products people need.”
A Look At What The Startup Does
Credable, a company founded in 2021 by Nadeem Juma, Jad Abbas, and Michael Tarimo, offers a digital banking infrastructure that enables companies in emerging economies to simply, swiftly, and safely offer financial products to their clients.
Read alsoNigerian Fintech Startup OnePipe Secures $4.8M Debt Financing From TLG Capital
Clients of Credable’s partner companies profit from having access to a variety of financial products through the familiar and often used digital channels. Fintech companies collaborate with a variety of companies, including banks, mobile network carriers, eCommerce platforms, and fintech players.
More than 1.2 million individuals have established accounts on Credable’s platform since it introduced its first product less than a year ago, and its banking products have been utilised by more than 200,000 users (consumers and SMEs) throughout its markets. A variety of savings products, term loans, overdrafts, asset finance, and other credit options are among these offerings.
Credable’s platform has disbursed more than $5 million in loans as of March 2023, and it had received roughly $3 million in deposits into its savings products.
“In line with our thesis, Credable is helping businesses create and capture value by expanding their addressable market to provide financial services to previously excluded market segments and communities, and we believe that this will become a flywheel that powers economic growth in emerging markets,” Dr Dotun Olowoporoku, General Partner at Ventures Platform, said.
“Jad, Nadeem and Mike are experienced operators and entrepreneurs with deep product knowledge, experience and network in the markets they are operating in. They understand the problem on a deep level and have experience building financial solutions. It’s a privilege to back them on this journey and we are excited about the future.”
The firm obtained a pre-seed round of $2.5 million from The Continent Venture Partners (TCVP) a year prior to receiving this seed funding.
“This reinforces our conviction in Credable’s B2B2C model and our partnership approach as the model that is best positioned to scale financial services to the underbanked across our markets,” Credable’s CFO, Jad Abbas, added.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard