• Pezesha

  Participated · Series A · Aug 2022

  Pezesha is a Kenyan fintech that began by providing merchant lending to retailers and later expanded to offer working-capital facilities. The company has partnered with eCommerce platforms (notably MarketForce) to improve customer inventory and distribution. Pezesha recently received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to deploy data science, machine learning and other advanced computing technologies to streamline and enhance its lending capabilities for small businesses in sub‑Saharan Africa. Financially, Pezesha was involved in a six‑month legal dispute with MarketForce over outstanding debts that led Pezesha to file a liquidation petition in September 2023. The two firms reached an out‑of‑court settlement after leadership met at the Harambeans Global Summit in March 2024, with MarketForce agreeing to use intangible assets valued by Pezesha to settle the debt. Leadership from both sides said the episode underscored the need for better communication and cooperation going forward. Pezesha is a Kenyan fintech that has built a scalable, API-driven digital lending infrastructure and credit-scoring technology that enables traditional and non-traditional finance providers to offer working capital to MSMEs. The company integrates with partners such as Twiga and MarketForce and currently works with more than 20 partner companies. To date Pezesha has enabled loans to over 100,000 businesses, offering loans up to $10,000 at single-digit interest rates with typical repayment terms of one year. Founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa, Pezesha is expanding beyond Uganda and Ghana into Nigeria, Rwanda and Francophone Africa as it scales its embedded finance offering. It plans to create a $100 million financing opportunity each year by tapping local and international banks, high-net-worth individuals and decentralized finance. Pezesha says it is profitable, raised seven figures last year, and initially received 20% of its pre-seed investment from local angels.

No current team members are available.