Uganda digital lending platform Numida has raised a US$12.3 million pre-Series A funding round led by Serena Williams’ venture firm Serena Ventures.

Breega, 4Di Capital, Launch Africa, Soma Capital, MFS Africa, and Y Combinator participated in the US$7.3 million equity portion, while Lendable contributed the US$5 million debt portion.

This is the first investment in Uganda for all of these firms except mobile money giant MFS Africa which led the company’s US$2.3 million seed round in April 2021.

The new funding will enable the company to double its active client base to 40,000 in the next 18 months and expand into two new African markets — either Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt or Kenya.

Founded in 2017, Numida provides small businesses with unsecured digital loans of between $100 to $5,000 at interest rates of between 10% and 16% that are payable after one month.

The company claims to have issued US$20 million in working capital to micro and small businesses since its founding, and is now issuing some US$2 million each month.

“I’m most excited about continuing to build and provide financial products for these micro and small business owners who have been forgotten by the traditional financial services industry even though they are hardworking and have viable businesses.

 

There are so many of these businesses across the continent, we really do believe that we’ve proven a model in Uganda that can be Pan-African and unlock the potential of these businesses to growth and achieve great things,”

said Mina Shahid, CEO of Numida.