Lidya, an online invoice generation and financing platform, has collected $6.9m in its Series A funding round.
Omidyar Network led the investment, with contributions also coming from Bamboo Capital Partners, Alitheia Capital, Tekton Ventures, and existing backers Accion Venture Lab, Newid Capital.
Nigeria-based Lidya helps ease the access to credit for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses through its invoicing technology. Users can create personalised digital invoices to be sent to customers instantly, or use tools to manage current outstanding payments and historic data.
Lidya also lets MSMEs acquire credit lines for unpaid invoices to boost working capital, with loans being deploed within 48 hours. The company has supplied more than 1,500 buisness loans to support MSMEs working in the farming, hospitality, logistics, real estate, technology and real estate industries.
This capital injection will be used to expand its loan capacity, scale across Nigeria as well as enter new markets in Africa. Proceeds will also be used to hire more staff, particularly data scientists and engineers.
Lidya co-founder Tunde Kehinde said, “Lidya was founded on a simple, yet fundamental idea: technology can unleash and empower a generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs throughout Africa by revolutionizing how risk is assessed, credit is underwritten, and customers are banked.”
The company was recently brought into the MasterCard Start Path Program, a global initiative to support the development of commerce solutions.
Earlier in the year micro-finance banking software developer Oradian closed a couple of funding rounds, picking up over £100,000. Its platform was initially deployed in Nigeria and helps micro-finance institutions with core infrastructure to support processes such as accounting, loan portfolio management and deposit tracking.
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