Nigerian fintech startup Indicina raises $3m seed funding round

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.

A message from their official blog read

Indicina is one of the pioneers of products designed to enable lenders unlock economic inclusion for African businesses and consumers. Almost three years later, and we are continuing our mission to deliver on this promise as we’ve become a leading provider of ML-driven financial analytics. We’ve also tripled our customer base across core customer segments — banks, non-bank lenders, and tech start-ups.

Focused on building API-driven credit infrastructure for Africa, I am excited to announce that we’ve raised $3 million in our Seed round to foster our commitment to the credit value chain. This round was led by Target Global with participation from Greycroft and RV Ventures. Ricardo Schaefer, Partner at Target Global will also join the board.

Our new funding round will accelerate our expansion into other African markets. It will also enable us to reinforce our 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% of its population have their credit information recorded by private credit bureaus vs 16% in East Asia and 47% in Latin America¹ . And among African banking customers, only 17% have consumer loans — less than half of those with a transaction product.

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.

Ricardo Schäefer, Partner at Target Global said “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.”

The growth of digital financial services is accelerating on the continent, with non-bank players leading the charge (notably Telcos and FinTechs). This includes a maturing digital payment infrastructure and more open banking start-ups providing improved datasets for digital lending. Companies need to build increasingly innovative applications that leverage the data exhaust. Our architecture sits on top of customer data infrastructure providing deeper insights and allowing customers to go to market faster with more innovative products.

“Limited access to credit in Africa is a data problem, not a creditworthiness problem. We are unlocking opportunities by eliminating the complexity associated with accessing the data necessary to make underwriting decisions. We are excited about Indicina’s ability to expand the breadth of financial services available to consumers and businesses across Africa.” added Will Szczerbiak, Partner, Greycroft.

Our mission to empower credit providers is a journey, and this is just the beginning. With a global team spanning 8 cities and 4 continents, we are better equipped to support our valued customers with more data-driven products.