Trade Lenda, a Nigerian fintech startup that digitises access for millions of MSMEs in Nigeria, has raised $520,000 from African-focused investors such as Sovereign Capital, ARM Labs, Expert Dojo, and a few Nigerian Angel Investors.

The Fintech Startup, led by Adeshina Adewumi as CEO, Shina Arogundade as COO, and Oluwatosin Ayodele as CTO, all from the finance, retail, and banking sectors, is confident in their strategy and approach to addressing this global crisis confronting MSMEs across Africa.

They opted to use their skills to handle this difficulty when they entered the market in 2021.

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“My mum was a retailer and growing up I had first-hand experience on how small businesses can be instrumental to shaping the future which I am part of today. This is one of the things that drives us, knowing fully well that we can support today with our collective experience of millions of women like my mum who would go on to support their families at home,” said Adeshina CEO.

Why The Investors Invested

Since its inception, the firm has gained significant traction. According to Shina Arogundade, they have so far extended loans to over 1,500 firms with over $2 million in disbursements in less than 6 hours on average.

“Our technology allows us to underwrite requests quickly and efficiently from our users while limiting our risk exposure with Non performing loans less than 1%. Our goal is to help be that bridge for MSMEs to become big brands like Spar, ShopRite or even Walmart. At the end they would be able to add economic value to the society, create millions of jobs and better support their families.

Speaking about their year-end estimates, Adeshina stated that they expanded 5x between 2021 and 2022 and are on course to grow revenue and impact 10x from what they produced in 2022. 

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