NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Asilimia, a startup that is building the digital infrastructure to connect African MSMEs to the formal financial economy, has secured $2 million. To grow its team, deliver new services and expand into new markets in East Africa. The startup raised $1 million in pre-seed funding from a wide range of investors, including two-time unicorn founder, Fredrik Jung Abbou (co-founder of Kry and Lendo), Norrsken Impact Accelerator and other prominent founders from across Europe.

It also raised $1 million in a debt round that included Bpifrance and GreenTec Capital Partners. The pre-seed funding will support team growth and expansion while debt funding will enable Asilimia to extend credit to MSMEs, providing much-needed financing to help them scale their businesses.

Asilimia is on a mission to build the digital financial infrastructure of Africa’s highly fragmented and paper-based informal economy, and address the $360 billion credit gap that is impacting the continent’s 150 million MSMEs. Despite contributing approximately 38 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, lack of consolidated data means MSMEs are considered as high risk, leaving them locked out by traditional financial institutions.

Photo courtesy of Kate Holt.