Kenya’s Pezesha raises 7-figure sum in seed extension led by Nigeria’s Greenhouse Capital

Kenya-based pan-African fintech startup, Pezesha has announced it has closed a seven-figure sum in a seed-extending round. The round was led by a Nigerian Venture Capitalist firm, Greenhouse Capital Partners. It was also supported by GHC’s sister company Venture Garden  Group (VGG) with on-lending liquidity.

According to the startup, this funding extension will support its continued growth across Africa as it strives to fulfil its mission of expanding access to affordable working capital for SMEs on the continent.

Founded by Hilda Moraa in December 2016, Pezesha prides itself as a pan-African fintech company that is building scalable lending infrastructure for SMEs and institutions. The fintech said it has robust APIs that provide original credit scoring models that allow capital to flow efficiently and productively.

The company is also looking to become the leading ‘enabler platform’ where banks and other financial institutions can be matched with quality SMEs thus giving them access to working capital. Through this approach, the startup hopes to drive real financial inclusion and reduce any inequalities in access to formal financial services.

Therefore, using its holistic digital financial infrastructure, the startup is looking to solve Africa’s $82 billion working capital and trade finance access problems by enabling non-traditional finance institutions to offer working capital to SMEs.

“Pezesha is breaking down barriers to SME financing by taking an ecosystem approach to the problem of access to capital. We have full confidence in Hilda and the talented team at Pezesha to continuously close the SME financing gap across Africa”  

Ruby Nimkar, Principal at GreenHouse Capital

With this new funding, the company which currently operates in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria says it will expand the capital available for itself and its institutional partners to lend to SMEs.

Speaking on the new funding, Founder and CEO of Pezesha, Hilda Moraa, said the latest investment will help the company scale its existing partnership with SME’s across the continent.

“GreenHouse Capital’s investment will catapult our growth by enabling us to scale our existing partnerships with the likes of Twiga Foods, Jumia, Marketforce, and Popote  Pay, among others. More so, the investment will unlock our vision of building the operating system to power embedded finance in Africa,” she said.

Greenhouse Capital Partners is a leading VC company based in Lagos Nigeria. The VC which focuses on early-stage startups in Africa prides itself as the continent’s largest fintech fund by portfolio size. So far, it has invested more than $6 million in 25 deals across 7 African countries.

Some startups in its portfolio include Flutterwave, Wallets, Max, Migo and Helium Health. Indeed, Pesheza finds itself in good company and as its CEO noted, “we are aligned in vision as well as our commitment to solving the working capital challenges that are preventing African SMEs from achieving their full growth potential.”