Indicina, a digital lending platform that uses real-time consumer data to help businesses make better credit decisions, has completed its seed funding round, where it raised $3 million.
The round was led by Target Global (a Berlin-based venture capital firm), Target Global has also invested in other Nigerian startups, like Kuda, Kippa and Edukoya.
Other participants in the seed funding round includes Greycroft, and RV Ventures.
Coming after the fundraise, the credit agency company, which currently operates in Nigeria and Kenya, noted that the funds will be used to push its expansion across Africa. The funds will also be used to strengthen the company’s primary product offerings, develop more consumer credit recommendation products, and improve its infrastructure.
Speaking on the fundraise, investors claim that the investments made on Indicina was due to the unique approach the company is taking to solve credit problems in Africa.
Indicina, according to the co-founder and CEO, Yvonne Johnson, has over 120 customers, which includes banks, non-bank lenders and fintech. Some include Polaris Bank, LipaLater, VFD, Zilla, and CreditDirect.
Indicina was founded in 2018 by Carlos del Carpio (Chief Data Analyst), Jacob Ayokunle (CTO), Yemi Ajao, and Yvonne Johnson (CEO). Johnson said she made the move to start the company in 2019, adding that when digital banking, and loan facility companies began to go mainstream, she saw it as an opportunity to create a platform that credit rails and financial analytic tools to the companies.
“We’ve never had any balance sheet. It’s never been about offering credit for us. We want to focus on the infrastructure layer and provide good infrastructure for people to feel more comfortable. […] We want lenders to be better informed about the decisions around credit so they can go to market faster with their digital product. So we’ve never had a business model that included our balance sheet, which we’ve always worked with the lenders,” Johnson, who is a former executive at First Bank, said.
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Indicina generates its revenue from API calls made by customers when analyzing financial documents. In the coming weeks, the company plans to launch a B2C offering to diversify its offerings.
The company is of the opinion that while it helps lenders to analyze borrowers’ bank statement, and helps them make improved decisions, borrowers will also need information about the lender.
“We have been working with the lenders; now we want to involve consumers. So they see what the lender would see if they are going to apply for a loan,” Johnson said.
Indicina claimed it has processed over ₦3 billion loan from 10,000 bank statements, and has successfully disbursed ₦700 million.