Nigeria’s Indicina raises $3m to drive expansion into other African markets

Indicina, a Nigerian based fintech driven to provide credit products which enable lenders of credits unlock economic inclusion for African businesses and customers has raised $3 million in its latest seed funding.

The three-year-old company which has its vision set on becoming a leading provider of ML-driven financial analytics announced that it has tripled its customer base across its core segments which included, banks, non-bank lenders, and tech start-ups.

According to the Chief Executive Officer, Yvonne Johnson, who confirmed the latest $3 million raise in a statement made available to journalists, the round was led by Target Global with participation from Greycroft and RV Ventures.

I am excited to announce that we’ve raised $3 million in our Seed round to foster our commitment to the credit value chain.

Yvonne Johnson, CEO Indicina

She added, “Our new funding round will accelerate our expansion into other African markets. It will also enable us to reinforce our key product offerings, build more products for Consumer credit recommendation, and bolster its infrastructure.”

Read also: Investigation: Are bank staff colluding with PoS operators to rip off Nigerians?

What this means for Nigeria and Africa

Africa’s credit infrastructure is inadequate, and its innovation is low-risk. Private credit bureaus have credit information on only 11 per cent of the population, compared to 16 per cent in East Asia and 47 per cent in Latin America. Only 17 per cent of African banking clients have consumer loans, compared to fewer than half of those who have a transaction product.

Most credit lenders in Africa lack the technology and credit risk innovation needed to take advantage of this large consumer credit potential which the continent needs to back financial inclusion for all.

Hence, for more effective client acquisition and risk assessment, Indicina is providing tools which enable a competitive digital offering backed by powerful data and analytics capabilities. Also, their corporate clients are digitising customer journeys at a faster rate, while the FinTech customers are using APIs to build embedded finance products.

According to the CEO, “the new investment round will power all the workings of our next phase, and we’re excited to partner with an excellent group of investors.”

What Indicina new partners are saying

According to Ricardo Shaefer, Partner at Target Global, who joins the Board at Indicina, the funding would further drive financial inclusion in Africa, providing data which helps credible assessment of risks associated with a credit facility for individuals and businesses.

We are firm believers that access to credit is a core facet of financial inclusion and are excited to back Indicina, whose goal is to ensure that eligibility for loans will no longer be determined by incomplete creditworthiness assessments.

Ricardo Shaefer, Partner at target Global

“Companies must create increasingly inventive applications that take advantage of the data surplus. Our architecture sits on top of consumer data infrastructure, giving clients better insights and helping them to launch more innovative solutions faster.

“Limited access to credit in Africa is a data problem, not a creditworthiness problem. We are unlocking opportunities by eliminating the complexity associated with accessing the data necessary to make underwriting decisions. We are excited about Indicina’s ability to expand the breadth of financial services available to consumers and businesses across Africa.” added Will Szczerbiak, Partner, Greycroft.

With a global team spanning 8 cities and 4 continents, the company continues to move closer to its mission to empower credit providers and is fully equipped to support customers with more data-driven products.

Johnson, who launched Indicina with CTO Jacob Ayokunle and chief data scientist, Carlos del Carpio, said the platform has over 120 customers, including banks, non-bank lenders and fintechs.

Some include Polaris Bank, LipaLater, VFD, Zilla and CreditDirect. According to information on Indicina’s website, it has helped these clientele process over ₦3 billion loans from 10,000 bank statements and disbursed over ₦700 million.