Tech in Africa
Africa-focussed fintech Asante Financial Services has made a Series A investment to scale its credit offerings to the underserved segment of MSMEs in Uganda, Kenya and expand towards Nigeria and Rwanda. The funding attracted new investors such as Goodwell, Sorenson, and Forsage.
MSMEs deliver a significant impact on the country’s economy particularly emerging markets that represent 90% of businesses amounting to 50% of the world’s GDP. According to the World Bank, the SME credit gap in Subsaharan Africa is at $330 million. MSMEs that are neglected by lenders bring about due diligence, customer acquisition, accurate credit assessments, insufficient data availability, uncertain customer lifetime values, lack of collateral, and high distribution and servicing costs.
Asante is an ecosystem-based digital lending platform that relies on alternative data and a proprietary AI loan decision management system when it comes to loan approvals. This company works directly with ecosystem channel partners when collecting conventional MSME data.
