Tech in Africa
Kibanda TopUp, a B2B platform connecting restaurants to their suppliers, has partnered with Africa’s largest digital bank Carbon to offer small and medium-sized restaurants with short-term financing. This is in response to the market gap for unsecured working capital loans in the restaurant industry in Africa. Traditional lenders lack the tools, data, or infrastructure to offer short-term lending to the sector.
The startup is hoping that the new initiative will solve some of the uncertainties that curb the food services industry affecting their ability to plan for longer-term investment. In the press release shared by the company, Emilie (COO at Kibanda TopUp) said that their goal is to help restaurants grow where “ financial services are an integral part of that.”
Kibanda TopUp was launched in February 2021 by Emilie Blauwhoff and Njavwa Mutambo and completed a $460,000 pre-seed raise in June 2021. The startup will leverage the restaurants’ transaction data on its platform to Carbon who then gauge the creditworthiness before issuing loans.
Eliud Mungai, Carbon’s Kenya country manager, pointed out that the new initiative will “deliver low-cost and high-value credit to SMEs.”
https://twitter.com/KibandaTopup/status/1417865881351299073
