March 31, 2022

Kenyan Fintech Startup Churpy Gets $1m Backing From Global Investors

Churpy, a Kenyan fintech startup, has secured a $1 million seed round led by Unicorn Growth Capital.

Also participating were Antler East Africa, Nairobi’s business angel network, and a group of Rally Cap LPs. The round will be used to support expansion to Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa.

The startup said it wants to transform how businesses manage the debt owed to them by their customers through its Software as a service (SaaS) product – which automates the labor-intensive processes of reconciling incoming payments and invoices that are still predominantly manual for most local companies.

In addition, the firm, set up by co-founder Kennedy Mukuna, said it is set to roll out a working capital financing product targeting small-medium enterprises supplying to the enterprise customers that are signed up to the startup’s SaaS product.

Speaking to the press on his ambitions, he said: “We are hiring more people as we plan to enter Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, which are the hubs into their (respective) regions. We are also putting finances into product development as we plan to scale our offering.

“SMEs have a huge financing gap. They are the suppliers to these big companies and need capital to keep taking raw materials to their other clients. Usually, they need collateral to access loans from banks and wait for approval to access capital to keep their business going. What we are doing is ensuring that they get paid not long after they deliver goods to partner enterprises for a 0.5% origination fee. Once their invoice matures, we get paid.”

Unicorn Growth Capital founding partner and CEO Barbara Iyayi said, “It is clear that B2B payment operations are significantly under-penetrated and ripe for modernization and disruption globally. We are excited to partner with the Churpy team as the first mover in the market.”

“Churpy is the only available end-to-end platform that provides accounts receivable automation, an invoice marketplace and reconciliation with integrated B2B payments specific to its markets. They are well positioned to be a critical partner to businesses and lenders in Africa, and can effectively address the significant credit gap faced by SMEs for supplier finance and working capital,” Iyayi told Tech Crunch.

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Abbianca Makoni

Abbianca Makoni is a content executive and writer at POCIT! She has years of experience reporting on critical issues affecting diverse communities around the globe.