Indicina, a platform that uses real-time consumer data to assist businesses of all sizes and sectors in making better, safer, and faster credit decisions, just raised $3 million in a seed round.
Target Global, a Berlin-based and pan-European venture capital firm, headed the round, adding to its extensive Nigerian startup investments, including Kuda, Kippa, and Edukoya. Ricardo Schäefer, a partner of the business, will join Indicina’s board of directors. Greycroft and RV Ventures both joined in this round.
Lenders can utilize Indicina to enhance credit scoring and bank sentiment analysis, as well as gain access to machine learning-driven financial analytics and better insights into customers they don’t already have and derisk unsecured loans.
Another intriguing aspect of Indicina’s approach is that manual loan processors can use the platform to double or triple their business without bloating their loan books.
Target Global and Greycroft invested in Indicina because of its innovative method to address Africa’s credit problem.
Both firms supported Indicina because it uses data to tackle the loan qualification problem that was previously determined by incomplete creditworthiness assessments, according to its partners, Schäefer and Will Szcxzerbiak.
Credit bureaux and open finance platforms are among the fintech’s partners. Indicina, which Johnson co-founded with CTO Jacob Ayokunle and chief data scientist Carlos del Carpio, has over 120 users, including banks, non-bank lenders, and fintech, according to Johnson. Polaris Bank, LipaLater, VFD, Zilla, and CreditDirect are just a few.
According to Indicina’s website, it has assisted these clients in processing over 3 billion ($5 million) in loans and disbursing over 700 million ($1.17 million).
Customers use API calls to analyze financial documents, which generate income for the startup. To expand its capabilities and income sources, the startup will launch a B2C service in the coming weeks. Indicina is wagering that consumers will require this information as well.
It has already evaluated bank statements in real-time for lenders to make critical choices. Credit and financial management platform, such as Credit Karma, is the easiest way to define it.
Indicina is already present in Nigeria and Kenya, and this fresh capital will help the company expand into other African markets.
It will also allow the startup to strengthen its primary product offerings, develop more consumer credit recommendation products, and improve its infrastructure, according to the firm’s announcement.
Indicina will be able to expand its product development in that area as a result of the funding, as it employs more data scientists and machine learning engineers.
Techbuild’s take
Access to credit is a critical component of any region’s adoption of financial services. However, while large corporations and high-net-worth people have no trouble getting loans from banks in Nigeria, the retail and SME segments are underserved.
Accessing loans in real-time is becoming significantly important as Africa’s financial systems grow more computerized.
Africa’s credit bureau systems are in desperate need of an overhaul to address these shortcomings, but because that’s a tall order, infrastructure platforms that supply credit underwriting processes are promoting themselves as viable alternatives in the market.
In today’s economy, having access to finance is a requirement. Credit is much more than a way of making purchases; it allows people and businesses to meet their daily necessities.
Several people do not recognize the significance of credit until their access is restricted, which is a sad truth. Indicina, for example, is constantly inventing to providing new products that benefit both SMEs and individuals.
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