Credable, a Dubai-based startup that helps businesses to provide their customers with digital banking services, has raised $2.5 million to scale its suite of products across several markets. The startup provides digital banking infrastructure services that let businesses embed banking services into their touchpoints with customers. The round was led by Ventures Platform, with participation from ACASIA Ventures, AAIC Investment, MAGIC Fund, Launch Africa, Emurgo Africa and some other angels.
Traditionally, digital banking operators need to build products from scratch, get regulatory approvals, and examine credit risk, amongst others, before piloting their offerings. But with Credable, they can avoid these processes by plugging into Credable’s underlying structure and launch financial services faster.
Credable focuses on emerging markets like Africa and will use its latest funding to roll out its product pipeline—including loans, savings, and asset financing products—across Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya. The company also plans to expand into new markets across markets in MENAP and West Africa, with Pakistan and Nigeria at the top of the list.
Founded two years ago by Nadeem Juma (CEO), Jad Abbas (CFO), and Michael Tarimo (CTO), Credable has grown in its vision to become the “Unit for emerging markets”, with some of its products recording significant traction post-launch. In May 2022, Credable rolled out its loan product with Vodacom M-Pesa in Tanzania. Since then the company claims “over 1.2 million customers have opted in for an account, over 200,000 users have either borrowed or saved via the platform, over USD 5 million in loans were disbursed, and USD 2.5 million of savings deposits were received from customers”.
“The problem we’re trying to solve is that a huge population of underbanked customers need banking services to improve their livelihoods. They are in different channels that they use every day, like telco-led mobile money, e-commerce platforms and gig economy apps. Rather than try to create a new channel to bank these customers, we aim to enable these channels through a B2B2C offering that provides the customers with the banking services they need in the channels they’re already in,” CEO Juma said in a TechCrunch interview,
In a statement sent to TechCabal, Acasia Ventures, a participating investor, expressed confidence in Credable’s product and team’s expertise. “Credable has had promising traction demand for its platform which demonstrates a need in the market…. The team at Credable is a mix of seasoned entrepreneurs with a deep understanding of the institutional challenge that plagues the underbanked in Africa, this aligns with our mission at Acasia to back founders solving everyday challenges at the bottom of the pyramid,” Biola Alabi, Acasia Venture’s general partner said.
Dr Dotun Olowoporoku, general partner at Ventures Platform, maintained that Credable’s business model positions it as a flywheel that powers economic growth in emerging markets. “In line with our thesis, Credable is helping businesses create and capture value by expanding their addressable market to provide financial services to previously excluded market segments/communities, and we believe that this will become a flywheel that powers economic growth in emerging markets,” he said in a statement sent to TechCabal.
