Grace Ashiru
Liquify, a fintech startup based in Ghana, is on a mission to modernize trade finance for African small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The company has successfully raised $1.5 million in an oversubscribed seed equity round, along with additional debt financing. This funding marks a significant milestone for Liquify as it seeks to address the $120 billion trade finance gap that Africa faces annually.
The equity round was led by Future Africa, an early-stage investor, with contributions from Launch Africa, 54 Collective, Digital Africa, Equitable Ventures, and several angel investors. Additionally, Emerald Africa, an impact-focused lender, provided a debt facility to support Liquify’s increasing liquidity needs.
Liquify was founded in 2023 by Nadya Yaremenko and Alberta Asafo-Asamoah. The company provides African exporters with a digital platform to convert unpaid invoices into immediate working capital through invoice financing. Since launching its beta in late 2024, Liquify has facilitated over 150 transactions totaling more than $4 million. The platform has mainly served SME exporters in Ghana and Kenya, who trade with buyers in Europe and North America.
Liquify’s co-founder and CEO, Yaremenko, explained, “Liquify was built to close the $120 billion trade-finance gap that is holding back Africa’s most dynamic SMEs. This seed round, along with the incredible people joining our team, confirms the validity of our vision. With our fully digital, AI-powered platform, exporters can convert unpaid invoices into same-day cash, while global investors gain access to a new, uncorrelated asset class.”
The platform leverages technology to streamline traditionally cumbersome trade finance processes, such as onboarding, Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, and credit scoring. Verified export invoices are financed within hours instead of the weeks it typically takes through traditional channels.
Yaremenko further stated, “Our technology eliminates the paperwork, delays, and high costs that have historically made it unfeasible for banks or development finance institutions to support smaller businesses. The average bank process takes over 10 days and costs more than $10,000 per SME. We reduce both the time and cost to a fraction of that.”
Liquify’s solution has been especially beneficial for SMEs in the agri-commodity sector, many of whom face payment cycles of 30 to 90 days while waiting for overseas buyers to settle invoices. With Liquify’s platform, these businesses can access same-day cash, providing critical liquidity.
Prior to co-founding Liquify, Yaremenko managed a $3 billion trade finance portfolio at Citi across emerging markets. She witnessed firsthand how the post-financial crisis retrenchment of global banks exacerbated funding shortages for African SMEs. Asafo-Asamoah, her co-founder, is an impact investor with organizations such as TBN and Seedstars, and observed similar challenges from the investment side. Both saw that patient capital alone was insufficient to sustainably grow SME exports and shared a vision to build a fully digital, AI-powered platform that could provide invoice financing “nine times faster and cheaper” than traditional trade finance channels.
Since its launch, Liquify has onboarded dozens of exporters, all of whom rely on the platform for repeat financing, with no customer churn reported. The company generates revenue by purchasing export invoices at a discount, thereby providing liquidity to SMEs and offering short-term, self-liquidating assets to investors.
With the new funding, Liquify plans to:
- Expand its team in Ghana across product, technology, and customer success functions.
- Improve its AI-driven risk engines to speed up due diligence and compliance checks.
- Enter new markets across both Anglophone and Francophone Africa, starting with Nigeria.
- Pilot structured investment products and digital tools to help exporters manage trade documentation more efficiently.
However, the journey has not been without challenges. Liquify has faced hurdles such as navigating multi-country compliance, building trust among SMEs who are accustomed to informal credit, and educating global investors about the viability of SME trade finance.
Yaremenko commented, “Convincing SMEs to adopt a formal, digital solution took time, but our speed and reliability have helped us gain trust. The biggest challenge is demonstrating to investors that SME trade finance isn’t just viable—it’s an investable, scalable asset class.”
Liquify aims to transform trade receivables, which are often overlooked, into a diversified and financeable asset class. The startup believes its model could ultimately help African SMEs grow their exports sustainably by providing them with predictable, affordable working capital, while offering investors exposure to short-term, low-correlation instruments that are insulated from broader market volatility.
Yaremenko concluded, “By turning slow-paying invoices into same-day cash, we’re not just helping SMEs survive—we’re empowering them to thrive.”
