Nigerian fintech startup Indicina, which is building API-driven credit infrastructure for Africa, has announced a US$3 million funding round to accelerate its expansion into other African markets.
Founded in 2018 by Yvonne Johnson, Jacob Ayokunle and Carlos del Carpio, Indicina is building digital infrastructure to unlock economic inclusion for African consumers and businesses. Its flagship product is a data-driven lending platform that digitises the credit value chain.
The US$3 million funding round was led by Target Global with participation from Greycroft and RV Ventures. Ricardo Schaefer, partner at Target Global, will also join the board. Indicina will use the capital to move into additional African markets, and also reinforce its key product offerings, build more products for consumer credit recommendation, and bolster its infrastructure.
“Africa has a poor credit infrastructure and low risk innovation. Only 11 per cent of its population have their credit information recorded by private credit bureaus versus 16 per cent in East Asia and 47 per cent in Latin America. And among African banking customers, only 17 per cent have consumer loans – less than half of those with a transaction product,” said Johnson.
“This massive consumer credit opportunity requires technology and credit risk innovation that most lenders currently don’t have. Our products enable a competitive digital offering backed by strong data and analytics capabilities for more efficient customer acquisition and risk assessment. Our enterprise customers are digitising customer journeys with greater speed, and our fintech customers are leveraging our APIs for their embedded finance offerings. This new investment round will power all the workings of our next phase and we’re excited to partner with an excellent group of investors.”
In the last year, Indicina has become a leading provider of ML-driven financial analytics and has tripled its customer base across core customer segments – banks, non-bank lenders, and tech startups.
“We are firm believers that access to credit is a core facet of financial inclusion and are excited to back Indicina, whose goal is to ensure that eligibility for loans will no longer be determined by incomplete creditworthiness assessments,” Schäefer said.
