Lendable connects impact investors to social ventures that offer asset-based financing in Africa.
In the company’s first deal, it helped arrange funds for Tugende, a Uganda firm that provides credit for motorcycle-taxi drivers to buy bikes through a lease-to-own arrangement.
The funds will let Tugende, which in four years has sold bikes to 5,000 drivers, buy more vehicles and reduce its waiting list (read and listen: “Financing Uganda’s Boda Bodas to Boost Drivers’ Livelihoods”).
Lendable structured a similar deal with Kenya’s Watu Credit, which also offers lease-to-own motorcycle financing, and brokered $550,000 in debt financing to Raj Ushangaa House for its pay-as-you-go solar kit business.
Lendable’s latest fundraising was backed by KawiSafi Ventures, Omidyar Network, Fenway Summer Ventures, and fintech angel investors.
