Serena Williams VC fund leads investment in Ugandan fintech company
Numida, the Uganda-based fintech company, announced a $12.3 million pre-series A financing round.
Serena Ventures led the $7.3 million equity portion of the round with participation from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital, and Y Combinator, which are all making their first Ugandan investment, and existing investor MFS Africa, which is following on. The round will be completed with $5 million in debt from Lendable Asset Management. With this new financing, Numida will reinforce its Ugandan presence and launch in two new African markets.
Numida estimates that 20 million micro and small businesses across Africa still lack access to working capital, representing a $5 billion market opportunity. Numida’s proprietary credit models and tech-enabled underwriting processes allows it to provide unsecured working capital loans to semi-formal African businesses. Instead of borrowing from informal lenders or family, business owners download the Numida app, apply in minutes, and receive capital within a day disbursed to their mobile money wallet.
Since its $2.3 million raise in April 2021, Numida has grown 7.5x and provided more than $20 million in unsecured working capital to 27,000 micro and small businesses in Uganda.
“Our claim to fame is that we’ve figured out how to score and disburse unsecured working capital to cash-based businesses that have no digital transaction history. We’re not reliant on any digital POS or ecommerce marketplace data and we also don’t scrape people’s phones. This has allowed us to significantly broaden our customer segment and serve the mom and pop shops that make up the majority of businesses in Africa,” says Numida’s CEO, Mina Shahid.
Speaking on behalf of Serena Ventures, which led this round, general partner Alison Rapaport Stillman adds, “While we’ve spoken to countless fintechs in Africa who claim that their end game is to provide financing to small businesses, Numida is already doing it. We’re impressed by the strength and commitment of Numida’s team and their methodical approach to solving a very complex problem – how to give a $500 loan to a business that has no collateral, operates in cash, and is semi-formal. We are excited to join their mission to unlock the potential of these businesses across the continent.”