Nigeria-based lending platform Payhippo has reportedly collected $3m in its seed funding round, as it looks to scale its team to support growth.
The round was led by a group of angel investors, including Chipper Cash co-founders Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, Flutterwave founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola, Chapel Hill Denham CEO Bolaji Balogun and Hakeem Metis Capital Partners founder Belo-Osagie, according to a report from TechCrunch.
With the support of the equity, the FinTech company will hire more staff so it can extend the reach of its services to small and medium-sized businesses in Nigeria. Two roles of keen interest for the team are engineers and data scientists.
The FinTech company helps SMBs in Africa access finance options, with it leveraging historical records and banking history to assess their creditworthiness. Companies can also leverage the technology to implement buy now, pay later services.
Payhippo co-founder Chioma Okotcha told TechCrunch, “We had seen that traditional banks and lenders wouldn’t loan small businesses mainly because there were no credit scores, or the collateral requirements were too high. We decided to come into the market and create an instant financing option, where we create a credit score that allows small businesses to get the liquidity they need to buy inventory for business continuity.”
Payhippo previously raised $1m in its pre-seed round back in June 2021. The investment capital was supplied by Ventures Platform, Future Africa, Launch Africa and Mercy Corps Ventures.
Nigeria has established a strong FinTech sector. This year has seen several FinTechs in the country raise funds. Most recently, Mono collected $15m in its Series A round. The company is designed to help people manage their various financial accounts through a single solution.
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