Kenyan startup FinAccess, which digitises Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) and farming cooperatives in the East Africa region, has raised US$500,000 in funding from Cape Town-headquartered venture capital (VC) firm HAVAÍC.
Founded by CEO Barclay Paul Okari in 2017, FinAccess offers a market-leading, fully proprietary SaaS solution to SACCOs and co-ops.
The company’s two core products are banking software solution Fincore and agricultural software solution Grobox. FinCore digitises and automates the entire financial back office and product functions of SACCOs, while Grobox is an operations management software solution for co-ops, which tracks and records inventory, production, sales, payments, and finance data.
The US$500,000 funding from HAVAÍC, allocated from the VC firm’s US$20 million HAVAÍC Universum Core African Fund, is part of a pre-Series A funding round, and will help FinAccess cement its market leadership in Kenya and expand into other markets. Live pilots are already underway in Uganda, with Zambia, Rwanda, and Tanzania launching in the coming months.
“Financial inclusion for underserved Africans is at the heart of our business,” said Barclay. “Digitisation ultimately releases credit and other vital financial services so farmers can increase productivity and efficiency. We are very excited to partner with HAVAÍC and bring our software solutions to more African communities.”
Rob Heath, partner at HAVAÍC, said FinAccess was solving critical problems for Africa’s underserved communities.
“The team’s growth and ability to perform over the last few years has been incredible to watch, and there is so much scope to continue growing across Kenya and beyond. FinAccess is 100 per cent aligned with our investment thesis to make an impact by supporting early-stage, high-potential companies that solve real-world challenges through technology. We look forward to supporting their unfolding growth journey,” he said.
