Cauris Finance, Lateral Frontiers VC, GreenHouse Capital, SOSV IV LLC, Sayani Investments and Axian Financial Services are investors who participated in Lipa Later’s equity and debt funding round.

Lipa Later is a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) company founded in 2018. The startup’s expansion into new markets includes countries such as Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria, as well as strengthening its presence in existing markets such as Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

The company targets achieving this growth and expansion plan within the next 12 months.

Lipa Later has exclusive partnerships with retailers across these markets allowing shoppers to pay for products in installments. For instance, Lipa Later’s partnership with French retailer Carrefour (which has a regional presence) allows customers to pay for items including furniture, electronics and even perishables in monthly installments.

Customers pay a monthly interest rate (about 2.3% in the case of Carrefour) on the credit extended to them. The startup is planning to forge more partnerships with merchants in its plan to cover more countries across Africa.

Lipa Later’s proprietary credit scoring and machine learning system allow consumers to sign up and get a credit limit almost instantly.

Also, the startup has built a BNPL API that integrates into e-commerce platforms, enabling merchants sell products directly to consumers and making it possible for consumers to remit monthly installments for items purchased.

In its bid to traverse Africa, where opportunities abound as e-commerce and alternative credit sources grow, Lipa Later will have to contend with competition from South Africa’s Payflex (which was recently acquired by Australian BNPL Zip) and PayJustNow, and Nigeria’s PayQart and Carbon Zero.

The post Kenya’s Lipa Later expands into new markets with $12,000,000 pre-Series A round appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Founded by innovative entrepreneurs with deep roots in Africa’s financial industry, Bfree is set to enhance credit management, placing ethics and technology at the fore of its operations.

The genesis of Bfree traces back to the founders’ dissatisfaction with prevailing credit collection practices across Africa.

Witnessing the adverse effects of aggressive debt retrieval techniques employed by predatory digital lenders, the company resolved to challenge the status quo. 

Bfree is working to ensure dignity and respect in all borrower-lender interactions. The company has been successful in implementing strategies that ensure fair and just debt recovery processes, helping borrowers to be treated with compassion and understanding, while still working to recover debts that are owed. 

Its focus on ethical debt recovery has gained the trust and respect of many borrowers who have found themselves in debt and in need of assistance.

Led by CEO Julian Flosbach, alongside co-founders Chukwudi Enyi and Moses Nmor, Bfree embodies a vision of financial empowerment and integrity. The current fund raised included diverse investors such as Capria Ventures, Angaza Capital, GreenHouse Capital, and others. 

Bfree’s innovative approach to debt recovery centres around empowering borrowers while ensuring the sustainability of lending institutions. 

Through scalable debt recovery methods, including self-service platforms and conversational AI tools, Bfree prioritizes humane interactions and borrower autonomy. The company leverages technology and ethics, to bolster the credit management sector.

With its recent funding, Bfree will expand its footprint across key African markets, attracting major banks and financial institutions in Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria. 

While initially targeting digital lenders, Bfree strategically shifts its focus towards banks, recognizing their significant contribution to revenue generation. 

Beyond debt recovery, Bfree envisions a secondary debt market that facilitates the purchase of non-performing loans from African banks.

The company is utilizing predictive algorithms and analytics solutions to help banks scale through secondary markets with precision and efficiency, mitigating risk and unlocking new avenues for growth.

The post Bfree Secures $3M Funding to Ensure Ethical Debt Recovery appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Earlier, Microsoft partnered with GreenHouse Capital to provide industry-based African pre-series A stage startups with access to new markets, technology infrastructure, technical skills, and funding opportunities to aggressively scale their solutions and leverage the knowledge and networks gained during the program.

In line with the selection of 10,000 African startups to be supported by Microsoft over the next five years, GreenHouse Capital has disclosed the 13 startups chosen from East and West Africa.

These startups will receive pre-series A investment, including access to new markets, technology infrastructure, technical skills, and funding opportunities to scale their solutions.

The startups and their founders participating in the Scale-Up Accelerator Program which will run for six weeks, featuring a demo day session and bringing global investors to meet the startup founders include:

1. Ourpass; founded by Samuel Eze
2. One Health; founded by Adeola Alli
3. BuuPass; founded by Sonia Kabra
4. GetEquity; founded by Jude Dike
5. Gobeba; founded by Lesley Mbogo, Peter NdianguI 
6. Oystr; founded by Ifedolapo Lawal
7. Afya Bora; founded by Reginald Victor Runyoro
8. Chekkit; founded by Dare Odumade
9. Zydii; founded by Joyce Mbaya
10. Eight medical; founded by Ibukun Tunde Oni
11. Herconomy; founded by Ife Durosinmi-Etti
12. Pharmarun; founded by Teniola Adedeji and Lola Aderemi
13. Mobiele; founded by Ife Akintaju and Sayo Owolabi

The post 13 African Startups Selected to Participate in Microsoft – GreenHouse Scale-Up Accelerator Program appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.