Pezesha, a digital lending infrastructure, and platform that helps finance medium, small, and micro enterprises startups (MSMEs) in Kenya, has raised $11 million in Series A to expand in Africa. The equity-debt round was led by Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II with participation from Verdant Frontiers Fintech Fund, cFund, and Cardano blockchain builder Input Output Global (IOG). The round also included a $5 million debt from Talanton and Verdant Capital Specialist Funds.

The Kenyan fintech company seeks to bridge the financing gap affecting millions of micro, small medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) across its current markets and also expand into Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, and Francophone Africa with the  $11 million investment.

Pezesha’s collaboration with Cardano is anticipated to lead to the development of an African peer-to-peer financial operating system.

Hilda Moraa, the CEO of Pezesha expressed her merriment in a tweet saying, 

“I am deeply humbled and excited about the investment from Charles Hoskinson, in our current Pre-series A round of $11m. The future looks promising as we join hands with Input Output in building Africa’s embedded finance operating system for SMEs.”

Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of IOG and Cardano, also commented, “Facilitating the movement of capital into emerging markets to support economic growth and job creation is a core promise of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Our vision is centered on using technology to make it easier for people across the globe to borrow and lend to each other in a regulated way. This investment in Pezesha is an important milestone, and we’re excited to be a part of their growth story.”

The business has been able to provide loans to more than 100,000 businesses so far owing to its collaboration with more than 20 partner companies.  It expects this number to grow before the end of the year as an additional 10 companies integrate with its infrastructure. The fintech is presently able to extend loans of up to $10,000 at single-digit interest rates, and a repayment period of one year.

Pezesha is also collaborating with businesses like Twiga and MarketForce, whose platforms use its credit score APIs to give their clients access to real-time loan offers.

Pezesha plans to create a $100 million financing opportunity each year for businesses by tapping local and international banking institutions, high-net-worth individuals, and decentralized finance.

“We are building for the future and this means tapping new innovations for additional liquidity that allows us to offer affordable loans to SMEs,” Moora said.

Pezesha was founded in 2017 by Hilda Moraa. The company has built a scalable digital lending infrastructure that allows both traditional and non-traditional financial institutions to offer working capital to MSMEs.