Asilimia, which is building digital infrastructure to connect African MSMEs to the financial economy, has collected $2m in funding to support its growth.
The round was comprised of $1m in pre-seed funding from a host of investors, including two-time unicorn founder Fredrik Jung Abbou, Norrsken Impact Accelerator and other founders from across Europe.
The remaining $1m was a debt round supplied by Bpifrance and GreenTec Capital Partners.
This capital will be used to help Asilimia expand across East Africa, release new services, hire more staff and extend credit to MSMEs.
Kenya-based Asilimia was created to build a digital financial infrastructure for Africa’s fragmented and paper-based informal economy and meet the $360bn credit gap in the region.
Founded by Tekwane Mwendwa and French entrepreneur Morgane Kablan, the company has established an affordable and easy-to-use digital platform that formalises payments, revenue collection and accounting for business owners. Its platform empowers a company to monitor their entire business from one location.
Users can access the services through their mobile phone to track expenses and sales, monitor pending payments and gain financial insight on operations.
The company claims to be growing at 30% week-on-week and on average, a customer uses the app 90 times each month.
Asilimia CEO and co-founder Tekwane Mwendwa said, “Africa’s informal businesses are the backbone of its economy, and we want to unlock their GDP to drive further growth and development across the continent. Our focus over the last few years has been to build a solution that works, and this new funding will enable us to take it into new markets and impact the lives and livelihoods of more business owners.
Fellow Kenyan FinTech company Wapi Pay collected $2.2m in its pre-seed round earlier this year. The company simplifies the remittance process between Africa and Asia.
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