Africa continues to be a prime destination for digital banking!

According to TechCrunch, Finclusion Group, the company using AI technology to provide African customers with financial services, has raised $20 million in a debt and equity pre-Series A financing round.

The move comes on the heels of the emergence of neobanks that continue to grow at rapid rates in various countries within the continent.

Finclusion's Mission

As the company continues to expand, Finclusion has one goal in mind and that is to “drive financial inclusion within market segments that have traditionally been underserved across the African continent, with a current focus on southern and eastern Africa.”

Birthed in 2018, the company has built consumer-facing credit products to close the credit gap within the countries that they operate in. 

One initiative includes SmartAdvance where Finclusion, offers various solutions for employees’ financial well-being through employer partnerships. This includes providing them with payroll loans and future wage loans that allow them to take loans off the back of their salary as well as deduct from their pay and lend through various employer relationships.

An Amazing Round Of Funding

The latest pre-Series A financing round features investors that include Andela and Flutterwave co-founder Iyin Aboyeji, LendInvest founder Christian Faes and ComplyAdvantage founder Charlie Delingpole.

In September, the company also raised $20 million through the Lendable debt capital raise. Today the company services 28,000 customers with active loans outstanding, just about 10 percent of the number of customers that the company has served since starting in 2018.

“This is one of the reasons we are going into a neobank strategy to maintain old and new users rather than effectively churning them out,” said chief executive Timothy Nuy to TechCrunch.

Other investors from the latest $20 million round include Jai Mahtani, Sudeep Ramnani, Jonathan Doerr, Richard Aseme (RCA Ventures), and a host of others.