Numida is a Ugandan fintech which provides credit to small businesses.

Numida, a Ugandan fintech which seeks to grow African small businesses through access to digital and unsecured working capital, has raised $12.3 million in a equity-cum-debt funding. Serena Williams’ venture fund Serena Ventures, led a $7.3 million portion of equity funding with participation from Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital, Y Combinator, and MFS Africa. Lendable Asset Management funded the rest of $5 million as debt. (TechFundingNews)

Numida extends digital working capital loans of $100-$5000 disbursed via mobile money to semi-formal micro and small businesses in Africa. The process wraps funding to an entrepreneur in just two hours, needing no paperwork or collateral.

“Our proprietary underwriting process enables us to verify businesses remotely and grow loan limits appropriately ensuring that Numida and our clients succeed,” says the fintech on its website.

Catherine Denis, Ben Best, and Mina Shahid – all Y Combinator graduates having sub-Saharan work experience, founded Numida in 2015.

Numida and financial inclusion

“It’s been a fascinating experience building a tech product for people who have never used a computer before,” said Mina Shahid, Numida’s CEO and co-founder. “Everyone can understand an interface in the valley but we’ve had to unlearn what a user interface is and have spent a lot of time on improving our UX and customer journey.”

Numida has provided working capital loans worth $20 million to 27,000 businesses in East Africa since 2021. It estimates its business opportunity to be worth $5 billion given that 20 million small and micro enterprises in Africa lack working capital.

The fintech will use the funds for additional hiring including a CFO, even a head of credit risk. It is also eyeing an expansion into new markets in Africa including Nigeria, Ghana, Egyptian, and Kenya.

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