Tech in Africa
Weza.io, a Kenyan startup founded in 2016, creates tools on credit score and fraud mitigation through the adoption of Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and statistical data modeling. Their ability to gauge client creditworthiness has seen them experience sound growth having just completed a round of angel funding.
When they started in 2016, the company began lending themselves as they tried to understand the learning universe around mobile money. They have recently changed their business model, instead offering their revamped platform as a solution to other businesses.
Samuel Njuguna, the co-founder expressed to Disrupt Africa, his need for “credit-scoring engines” that work for the “unbanked and underbanked” and other categories that lack banking data. The creditworthiness score requires the utilization of mobile phone transaction data to gauge credit scores.
The newly developed in-house credit scoring system also helps in preventing fraud that occurs in the digital lending space through the incorporation of fraud mitigation algorithms. Their aspiration is to see more startups join the digital lending space. Njuguna attributed their ability to create such a complex platform to their understanding of fraud mitigation, credit score, and how to build a solid infrastructure.
He was also open enough to disclose the “steep learning curve” that took them a full year to get all the right elements together. In their first approach, they were victims of fraud, and losses arising from issuing debt to people with poor credit scores.
At the moment, they have customized their platform to accommodate B2B and B2C clients. He describes their growth as “organic” and hopes they can achieve an “inorganic growth curve” in the future. In 2017, the company received an angel investment of US$200,000 and an additional top-up of US$232,000. Njuguna is upbeat of another seed round purposefully to scale their business.
