The 2020 Inclusive Fintech 50
View Winners By
- Credit
- Infrastructure
- Insurance
- Payments and Remittances
- Savings and Personal Financial Management
- East Asia and the Pacific
- Europe and Central Asia
- Latin America and the Caribbean
- North America
- South Asia
- Sub‑Saharan Africa
- Low‑Income Household
- Mass Market
- MSMEs
- Non‑Salaried Workers
- Rural Household
- Smallholder Farmers
- Underserved
- Youth
- B2B
- B2B2C
- B2C
- Seed/Angel
- Self‑Funded
- Series A
- Series B
- Venture Series
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Aflore
Credit B2C Low‑Income Series B
Headquarters: Colombia
Operating Countries: Colombia
Aflore combines tech and data with existing personal relationships to expand financial services to the middle class in Latin America. Clients often have limited or no access to formal credit and a deep distrust of banks. Many of the typical clients have resorted to borrowing from loan sharks or friends and family, and 57 percent are women. The company recruits and trains women as Informal Advisors, equipping them with a mobile platform and enabling them to offer financial services to their personal networks. The Informal Advisors earn income through Aflore’s incentive system while extending financial services to clients. Since launching in 2014, Aflore have reached 25,000 Informal Advisors, of whom over 19,000 are women.
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Akiba
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Low‑Income Venture Series
Headquarters: Mexico
Operating Countries: Mexico, Peru
Akiba aims to improve the financial wellbeing of low‑income employees by enabling savings and providing access to emergency lines of microcredit. Through its app, Akiba helps to digitize Latin America’s ubiquitous Employee Savings Banks, and increases the adoption and use of these savings mechanisms. The company also supports employees by helping to bridge their cash needs in the days leading up to payday through lines of credit. Akiba’s automatic and recurring deductions leverage behavioral science to help users save for short‑term goals and keep emergency cash. One third of users who have been using Akiba for three years have saved 174 percent more when using the fintech product. Akiba users saved 174 percent more when using the fintech product. More than 90 percent of Akiba’s 82,000 registered users are active users.
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Alfi
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Mass Market Series A
Headquarters: Mexico
Operating Countries: Chile, Mexico, Peru
Alfi is a platform and app that connects users to a marketplace of financial products while improving their financial management skills. Through gamification and machine learning, the platform adapts to individual profiles and preferences, delivering unique experiences. Users learn to make decisions about reducing delinquency and debt, growing their income, and improving their financial health overall. Alfi then connects users with appropriate financial products offered by the company’s partners, based on the user’s needs. Since launching in 2019, Alfi has reached 150,000 registered users, half of whom they estimate are underserved.
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Asaak
Credit B2B MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: Uganda
Asaak is an asset financing company that provides credit by lending motorcycles, fuel, and smartphones to drivers to improve the lives of informal workers in Uganda. In Africa, the informal sector accounts for 86 percent of all businesses and provides employment opportunities to low‑income workers, including drivers. Yet, these entrepreneurs lack access to credit. Along with providing motorcycle financing, Asaak also provides additional training to help these drivers begin working for ride‑share or delivery companies like Uber or Jumia. Asaak is also expanding its financial platform to include automated educational services around key business skills to help its customers grow their enterprises. Since launching, Asaak has reached thousands of end‑users in this underserved market.
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Bamba
Insurance B2C Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Mexico
Operating Countries: Mexico
Bamba is a platform that brings low‑income domestic workers into the formal financial system. Domestic workers in Mexico, including housekeepers, drivers, maids, and nannies, are often paid in cash and without benefits, making them vulnerable to health or income shocks. Bamba’s platform brings workers, employers, and financial institutions together through a low‑cost annual membership that provides workers with personal accident insurance, indemnity insurance, free medical consultations, a savings account, and a debit card for electronic payments. This helps ensure workers receive a regular salary, can save money, and can generate a credit history. Since launching, Bamba has reached over 6,000 registered users.
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Bankly
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2C Non‑Salaried Workers Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Nigeria
Operating Countries: Nigeria
Bankly helps its users digitize and grow their cash in a safe, simple manner through technology. In Nigeria, Bankly supports unbanked and underbanked people who currently save with thrift collectors and pool clubs. These are often farmers, market traders, artisans, and transport workers who are paid in cash and cannot access a bank easily. Through a series of tech‑ and human‑based touchpoints including its app and agent network, Bankly helps its users digitize their cash, which can then generate data to create a digital and financial identity. The Bankly Agent app provides a suite of services including savings, transfers, withdrawals, bill payments, airtime top‑up, and financing. Bankly has reached over 35,000 registered end‑users, with nearly 75 percent of users identifying as underbanked.
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Climb Credit
Payments and Remittances B2B2C Mass Market Series A
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: United States
Climb Credit provides accessible and affordable payment options for partner schools that focus on jobs with strong earning potential in today’s economy. The company offers financing solutions to adults with the desire to increase their salary or completely change their career path and industry, as well as those who are unemployed or have low credit scores. Climb Credit’s unique underwriting has a strong focus on accessibility for adult learners with different financial backgrounds and helps remove financial barriers to promote economic mobility by advancing education along resilient career paths.
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Coink
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Youth Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Colombia
Operating Countries: Colombia
Coink is an app that brings the traditional experience of the piggy bank into the digital age. The company focuses on financially underserved populations in Colombia and especially those with little financial education including young people. Coink is a fully‑licensed financial institution and users are able to access several financial services directly from the app. The user experience creates an emotional, reward‑based link between decisions and finances, building positive habits for long‑term financial health. Coink has reached over 14,000 registered users, over 10,000 of whom come from underserved populations.
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Davinta
Credit B2C Rural Households Self‑Funded
Headquarters: India
Operating Countries: India
Davinta is an AI‑based digital platform that offers credit and other financial products to unbanked and underbanked customers in India. The company focuses primarily on women living in rural areas. Davinta’s platform leverages data from both traditional and alternative channels to recommend financial products tailored to their specific needs. Through a network of partnerships, Davinta creates micro‑markets where its customers get opportunities to create and sell products and services to generate sustainable livelihoods. Davinta has acquired nearly 15,000 registered users, approximately 12,000 of whom are women.
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DreamStart Labs
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, Philippines, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia
DreamStart Labs offers digital banking solutions for informal community savings groups. More than 200 million unbanked people around the world today rely on informal community banks as their primary source of financial services. While these groups are extremely beneficial, managing them is difficult. Transactions are calculated by hand in paper ledgers, with cash stored in metal lockboxes. DreamStart Labs offers mobile apps that make it easy for members to conduct transactions, build credit history, and connect to formal banks. DreamStart Labs has reached thousands of savings groups across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, with over two‑thirds of its end‑users as underserved women.
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Dvara SmartGold
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: India
Operating Countries: India
Dvara SmartGold creates financial security for lower‑ and middle‑income households by encouraging micro‑savings. The company enables households to systematically, securely, and transparently save through gold, an asset class they are familiar with. Customers save via digital channels but can redeem the gold physically, in a convenient manner in case they need to liquidate their holdings for any unforeseen expenses or emergencies. To help customers become comfortable with digital savings, Dvara SmartGold offers door‑step collection. The product is offered through microfinance institutions, self‑help groups, fintechs, and business correspondents, among others. Since launching in 2019, Dvara SmartGold has built a registered user network of nearly 9,000 users.
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Esusu
Credit B2B Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: United States
Esusu uses rental payment data to help underserved populations build their credit histories and unlock new opportunities. The company serves low‑to‑moderate income households, the vast majority of whom earn less than USD 40,000 annually and are predominantly African‑America, Asian, and Latinx populations. Esusu’s proprietary rent reporting platform covers data from over 250,000 rental units across the United States from which it extracts data, transforms data in line with applicable regulations, and reports data into Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The company’s primary partners are large multifamily owners and operators.
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EthicHub
Credit B2B2C Smallholder Farmers Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Spain
Operating Countries: Mexico, Spain
EthicHub connects smallholder farmers with lenders and direct buyers from around the world. In the coffee trade in Mexico alone, there is a USD 700 million financing gap for smallholder farmers. Through an integrated, peer-to-peer online marketplace, EthicHub makes it possible for smallholder farmers to access affordable loans, build credit history, and sell their crops at fair prices without intermediaries or the speculative prices of commodities markets. Direct buyers benefit from lower prices and total traceability of the products they buy. In its first market in Mexico, hundreds of farmers already use EthicHub to access formal financial services and grow their businesses.
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Eversend
Payments and Remittances B2C Mass Market Seed/Angel
Headquarters: France
Operating Countries: France, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda
Eversend is a mobile banking solution that provides essential financial services through smartphones and basic mobile phones. For many of Eversend’s customers, this is their first experience with formal financial services. This includes refugees who may be far from a bank branch, low-income laborers who do not meet the necessary capital requirements to open a bank account, or women who are unable to provide traditional forms of collateral. Eversend offers several financial services through a basic mobile application including loans, insurance, remittances, bill payment, and debit card. The company also provides instant money transfers directly to mobile money accounts. Eversend has registered 60,000 users since launching.
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Extramile Africa
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Smallholder Farmers Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Nigeria
Operating Countries: Kenya, Nigeria, United States
Extramile Africa helps transform savers into investors while enabling MSMEs and smallholder farmers to access capital to grow their businesses. Through a mobile platform that incorporates blockchain technology, data science, and artificial intelligence, Extramile Africa provides low‑income earners the opportunity to make daily, weekly, or monthly contributions to a savings wallet that can then be deployed as direct investments in MSMEs and smallholder farmers. The accumulated funds are released to verified recipients that are primarily unbanked and underserved traders and farmers working in agricultural value chains. Extramile has reached nearly 150,000 registered users since launching, over half of whom remain active users. Nearly half of Extramile's registered users are female.
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Fairbanc
Credit B2B MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: Indonesia
Fairbanc is a highly-scalable closed loop credit platform for micro-merchants to purchase fast-moving consumer goods. Through a distribution partnership with Unilever, micro-merchants can purchase goods on credit without needing a smartphone. Fairbanc’s “Pay Later” API integrates directly into Unilever’s order-taking tablets, so micro-merchants only need a basic phone to receive SMS messages and a unique passcode for each credit purchase. Fairbanc emphasizes women’s financial inclusion and through its current partnership has access to a customer base of 650,000 mostly unbanked micro-merchants in Indonesia, nearly 260,000 of which are women.
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First Circle
Credit B2B MSMEs Series B
Headquarters: Philippines
Operating Countries: Philippines
First Circle builds resilience and unlocks economic opportunity for business-to-business SMEs in the Philippines. First Circle’s customers often have no credit data or fixed collateral and are excluded from the banking sector. Many have been forced to work with predatory lenders and approximately 40 percent are female-owned. With First Circle, these SMEs can secure finance in as little as one day through a digital and automated application process that delivers flexible loan terms tailored to their unique needs. First Circle has built a proprietary database of more than 250,000 business records and USD 1.5 billion of supply chain data that enables the company to underwrite thin- or no-file SMEs.
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Fonbnk
Payments and Remittances B2B2C Mass Market Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: Botswana, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda
Fonbnk provides borderless banking infrastructure directly to unbanked people around the world using the mobile internet. Using the Fonbnk’s Airtime Wallet, anyone with a prepaid mobile SIM card and a verified online identity can have a global stored value account for free by recharging their existing mobile phone. The company targets young, tech‑savvy users who have experience with online revenue generation tasks and pays them with prepaid airtime, which can be instantly distributed globally and without friction. This borderless payments infrastructure makes it possible for users to access, earn, transfer, pay, and save money easily and all from their existing mobile device.
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ftcash
Credit B2B MSMEs Series A
Headquarters: India
Operating Countries: India
ftcash aims to empower micro‑merchants and small businesses with the power of credit through digital payments. For millions of people in India, unexpected health issues or other financial shocks can push them into poverty. Compounding this problem is the fact that many living in or near poverty lack access to effective tools for saving, sending, and borrowing money to mitigate financial risks. Ftcash uses a proprietary algorithm to assess the creditworthiness of micro‑merchants and small businesses using transaction flow data, savings, network diversity, and geographic patterns, along with psychometric analysis. The customized credit score is used to access financial services including advances. Since launching in 2015, ftcash has reached a registered user network of over 400,000 small businesses and micro‑merchants.
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Fundfina
Credit B2B2C MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: India
Operating Countries: India, United Kingdom
Fundfina is a financial marketplace powered by open banking architecture, machine learning analytics and a digital distribution engine. The company partners with financial institutions to serve more than 150,000 MSMEs across India, who otherwise have difficulty accessing credit due to a lack of credit history, a need for small dollar loans deemed unprofitable by larger institutions, and a slow and complex lending process. Fundfina supports these merchants by curating appropriate financial products on its platform, enabling thin‑file credit assessments through proprietary indices, and offering cash flow management tools.
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Helicap
Credit B2B2C Underserved Series A
Headquarters: Singapore
Operating Countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore
Helicap is a fintech specializing in the alternative lending space in Southeast Asia and Australia. Helicap targets underserved individuals and SMEs who face cashflow problems and need access to credit facilities. Helicap’s proprietary technology employs credit analysis and scoring algorithms to analyze millions of loan data points from alternative lenders, allowing its loan origination partners to supply SMEs with working and investment capital, and enabling individuals to purchase productive equipment, pay university fees, or fund their small business. Since its launch in 2018, Helicap has facilitated lending capital to over 200,000 underlying borrowers, over 90% of which remain active today.
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Hydrologistics Africa
Payments and Remittances B2B2C Mass Market Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Kenya
Operating Countries: Kenya
Hydrologistics Africa has redesigned the water and utility management experience by building tools that empower consumers, utilities and the industry to bring efficiency, transparency and value in every drop of water. Hydrologistics Africa's founders grew up in Kenya, where water accounts for 11% of family income yet 3 or more days a week, water taps are dry. Their solution, HydroIQ, is an IoT device that is connected to the water system. It enables consumers to regulate and manage their water use. Through a simple interface, consumers can pay for the water they use through SMS or a mobile application. HydroIQ has created an active user network spanning 3,000 households across Kenya.
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Kaleidofin
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2B2C Low‑Income Series A
Headquarters: India
Operating Countries: India
Kaleidofin is a neo‑bank that offers intuitive and tailored financial solutions to underserved customers, helping them meet their real goals in life. A large segment of the company’s customer base are engaged in the informal sector with unpredictable incomes and little familiarity with financial products. Kaleidofin creates a customized financial plan for each customer based on their goals, financial capability and sources of financial vulnerability. This plan becomes the basis on which tailored solutions are created by combining a diverse set of financial products including savings, investments, insurance, and credit solutions that help customers meet their goals. Since launching in late 2017, Kaleidofin has reached nearly 130,000 active users, over 95 percent of whom are women.
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Kiu Global
Infrastructure B2B MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Vietnam
Operating Countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam
Kiu Global’s technology platform provides tools for MSMEs and farmers to be more efficient and productive, while leveraging data for access to capital. The MSMEs that Kiu Global serves are unbanked and underbanked, with knowledge gaps in business best practices, accounting, and financial management. The mid-market firms need digital tools to increase productivity and efficiency and the enterprise firms need a single platform to manage operations and supplier payments. Together with Kiu Global’s loan management system, the company’s ERP and accounting system drives a credit scoring engine and enables partner banks to assess loan risk while reducing administration costs. Loans can be delivered in less than 24 hours from the initial request. Since launching, Kiu Global has reached a market of 35,000 businesses.
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Lulalend
Credit B2B MSMEs Series A
Headquarters: South Africa
Operating Countries: South Africa
Lulalend offers working capital loans to small businesses across South Africa. Sixty percent of South African small business owners cite ''access to capital'' as a leading obstacle to growing their business, particularly the arduous paperwork, long wait time and high collateral requirements. Lulalend offers an online end‑to‑end credit management platform that uses artificial intelligence to instantly score creditworthiness with only minimal financial information and no collateral required. Business owners can receive funding within 24 hours of applying. Lulalend has processed over 70,000 applications and helped thousands of small businesses across South Africa to grow.
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Modal Rakyat
Credit B2B2C MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Indonesia
Operating Countries: Indonesia
Modal Rakyat is a working capital enabler for startups and MSMEs. Through its API-driven technology, the company unlocks a “pay later” option and invoice financing solutions for logistics marketplace, point-of-sale merchants, and online banks’ payment points. Modal Rakyat targets MSMEs, which are mostly underserved by traditional banks and lack access to working capital to sustain and grow their businesses. Rather than acquiring and building a network of MSMEs, the company partners with several technology partners with broad MSME networks, including e-commerce firms, logistics aggregators, and online bank agent networks. Since launching in 2018, Modal Rakyat has deployed 25,000 MSME loans in Indonesia.
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Moon
Infrastructure B2C Rural Households Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Senegal
Operating Countries: Senegal
Moon enables rural Africans to purchase proprietary pay‑as‑you‑go smartphones, along with a range of solar charging kits and solar home kits. In Africa, 600 million people lack access to electricity and cannot charge their phone reliably. Additionally, many lack access to smartphones and the benefits of digital and financial inclusion. Moon’s cloud platform manages the sale of smartphones on a pay‑as‑you‑go model with low‑data usage apps designed to encourage digital literacy. A dedicated digital payment app allows remote payments for the device as well as the home solar kits that provide charging and lighting for the household. Moon has equipped 5,000 families in rural Senegal and aims to reach 150,000 families in Togo by 2025.
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Nagad
Payments and Remittances B2C Mass Market Series A
Headquarters: Bangladesh
Operating Countries: Bangladesh
Nagad provides digital financial services to nearly 20 million customers in Bangladesh, ensuring low‑income populations can benefit from formal financial services. Through a digital KYC process, Nagad simplifies the account opening process and creates access to several solutions including CICO, peer‑to‑peer money transfers, mobile recharging, merchant payment, and bill payment. The company also enables salary payments for factory workers, government payments, and digital payments for micro‑merchants and other distributors. Nagad was classified as an emergency service by the government during COVID‑19.
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Naya Jeevan
Insurance B2B2C MSMEs Series A
Headquarters: Pakistan
Operating Countries: Pakistan
Naya Jeevan designs and delivers health and wellness solutions that match the unmet needs of employees in large and small companies. The company focuses on individuals linked to corporate value chains, including distributors, retailers, sales force, factory workers, and farmers. By partnering with major underwriters, Naya Jeevan can offer a range of off‑the‑shelf and customized health, life, disability, livestock, and general insurance solutions. The company combines the insurance solutions with tele‑medicine, preventative health interventions, and an automated claims process. Naya Jeevan has reached over 150,000 registered end‑users and has over 45,000 lives actively enrolled in its annual, digital health insurance and wellness plan, with over 75 percent of these being low‑income beneficiaries insured for the first time.
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Neat
Payments and Remittances B2B MSMEs Series A
Headquarters: Hong Kong
Operating Countries: Hong Kong, United Kingdom
Neat makes the world of international trade more accessible to entrepreneurs, SMEs and ambitious young companies from across the globe. Its financial services platform enables businesses to quickly, simply and securely incorporate in Hong Kong or London and open an account to receive and transfer multi-currency funds, issue corporate cards to employees, integrate with accounting and payment gateways and more. The application process is fully online and can be completed in just 15 minutes. Since launching, Neat has opened more than 28,000 customer accounts, helping businesses from over 35 countries to expand and trade internationally.
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OKO
Insurance B2B2C Smallholder Farmers Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Israel
Operating Countries: Mali, Uganda
OKO secures the income of unirrigated farmers in developing countries through a mobile‑based crop insurance that automatically compensates them if they suffered from adverse weather. More than one and a half billion people globally depend on rain‑fed agriculture for their income and a very large majority is unbanked. OKO creates affordable insurance products that are directly related to weather conditions and satellite observations. OKO's products are accessible from any kind of mobile phone and in rural areas since it uses simple technologies including SMS. At the end of January 2020 OKO became available to all Orange customers in Mali and by June had more than 1,800 paying customers.
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Oriente
Credit B2C Low‑Income Series B
Headquarters: Hong Kong
Operating Countries: Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam
Oriente is building a digital-first infrastructure designed to ignite economic opportunity for unbanked consumers and underserved merchants. The company’s fintech platforms provide access to a wide range of affordable financial services for its 5 million users, including cash loans, digital credit, and offline-to-online consumer finance. Through real-time data and insights, Oriente also empowers tens of thousands of merchants to increase conversions and lower risks. For the underbanked communities it serves, Oriente aims to accelerate inclusive economic growth by unlocking vital financial access, powering commerce, and improving financial literacy through its platform and community outreach programs.
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Papara
Payments and Remittances B2C Low‑Income Self‑Funded
Headquarters: Turkey
Operating Countries: Turkey
Papara is a financial superapp that enables individual users and businesses to send and receive money without worrying about bank hours, fees, or hidden expenses. The company targets unbanked and underserved customers, including youth, who may have a bank account but are unhappy with the services. Through its technology, Papara reduces the costs and complexities associated with typical financial operations. For both unbanked and underserved customers, Papara’s online KYC and onboarding capabilities streamline the signup process. Since launching in 2016, Papara has a registered user base of over 5 million and over 15 million transactions per month.
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Paycode
Payments and Remittances B2B2C Rural Households Series A
Headquarters: South Africa
Operating Countries: Botswana, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia
Paycode provides last‑mile delivery financial services technology solutions to unbanked citizens offline in real‑time. Designed for the hard‑to‑reach remote, rural end‑users, Paycode's Electronic Data and Payments Technology (EDAPT) creates, captures and verifies identity of citizens through biometric data collection, stores that information on a biometric smartcard, and uses that information to verify and authenticate digital banking transactions securely. Paycode partners with financial institutions in order to create low‑cost bank accounts for first‑time users. Launched in 2014, Paycode has reached over 4 million end‑users across 8 countries.
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PayGo Energy
Infrastructure B2B2C Low‑Income Series A
Headquarters: Kenya
Operating Countries: Kenya
PayGo Energy builds hardware and software solutions that makes clean cooking accessible and sustainable for low income households. In sub‑Saharan Africa, over 80 percent of households cook with dirty, dangerous fuels such as charcoal, kerosene and firewood. While these households have sufficient income to purchase clean‑burning liquified petroleum gas (LPG), they cannot afford the upfront cost of a whole cylinder. PayGo Energy’s flagship product is an IoT device that attaches to an LPG cylinder and enables consumers to purchase the fuel in small amounts using mobile money. Over 80 percent of PayGo Energy's customers are first‑time users of gas and 71 percent are women.
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PesaKit
Infrastructure B2B2C MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Kenya
Operating Countries: Kenya, Tanzania
Considered the “The Bank Branch of the Future,” PesaKit enables mobile money agents to better serve their customers and manage their financial health. With bank branches and ATMs in short supply in Kenya, mobile money agents are a critical access point for financial services but suffer in turn from volatile shifts in liquidity. PesaKit offers agents working capital in the form of e‑float loans, through regulated microfinance institutions as well as enabling agents to access new revenue sources by acting as providers of additional financial and digital services. PesaKit has already reached over 8,000 registered mobile money agents.
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Propel
Savings and Personal Financial Management B2C Low‑Income Series A
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: United States
Propel’s app helps low‑income Americans improve their financial health by introducing users to new ways to save and earn money. The forty million Americans who receive SNAP benefits on EBT cards must check their balance by calling a phone number on the back of the card. The Fresh EBT smartphone app replaces that phone call and provides EBT balance, transaction history, and budgeting tools, using EBT balance checking as a hook towards greater financial health. Fresh EBT is used by over 3 million Americans across the country each month.
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R5
Insurance B2C Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Colombia
Operating Countries: Colombia
R5 is an online insurance and lending platform that uses assets as collateral to offer better rates, larger amounts, and longer terms. The company focuses its insurance offering on low‑to‑mid income vehicle owners who are price sensitive and can use their car or motorcycle as collateral. For loan products, R5 serves low‑to‑mid income individuals, 50 percent of whom are self‑employed as micro‑ and small‑business owners. The company accepts sub‑prime and near‑prime applicants who are excluded from the banking sector. Through the vehicle insurance product, R5 can determine creditworthiness for thin‑file customers who need access to credit but have no previous credit history.
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Reach52
Insurance B2B2C Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Singapore
Operating Countries: Cambodia, Philippines, Singapore
Reach52 provides micro-insurance directly to rural consumers through their marketplace service and networks of predominantly female area managers. The company operates in communities that are over an hour away from health and financial services facilities and with family incomes of USD 2-8 per day. As well as insurance, consumers in these communities can also order from 500+ prescription and over-the-counter medicines, consumer health products, and diagnostic products – removing barriers of availability, affordability, and distance. The marketplace service is a key component of the health systems reach52 has established in over 1,000 communities, through which they also deliver health awareness, screening, and health worker capacity building.
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Siembro
Credit B2B2C MSMEs Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Argentina
Operating Countries: Argentina, Mexico
Siembro uses an AI‑powered loan algorithm to enable instant loan approvals for agricultural inputs and machinery in Latin America. The company targets SME farmers in Latin America, specifically the 1.5 million medium‑sized farmers in Argentina and Mexico with more than 10 hectares of land but limited access to credit. Siembro specializes in lending to corn, wheat, and soy farmers, where there is a deep need for innovative financing due to limited cash flows for these crops. Siembro enables farm equipment suppliers to originate medium‑term loans at physical and digital points‑of‑sale, helping these suppliers provide customers with instant loan approval.
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SoLo Funds
Credit B2C Mass Market Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: United States
SoLo Funds is a peer‑to‑peer mobile marketplace where borrowers can obtain small dollar loans that meet their needs. Seventy‑eight percent of American workers live paycheck to paycheck, often forced into borrowing money from family or friends, or taking loans from payday lenders that average 400 percent APR. SoLo Funds provides access to affordable loans by connecting borrowers to lenders through its marketplace. Lenders earn “appreciation tips” while borrowers set their own payback terms and enjoy same‑day receipt of their funds.
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SteadyPay
Credit B2C Non‑Salaried Workers Seed/Angel
Headquarters: United Kingdom
Operating Countries: United Kingdom
SteadyPay supports hourly and gig workers in the United Kingdom through income smoothing. Two‑thirds of the country’s employment growth since 2008 has been workers with no fixed paycheck, who have limited access to credit and, as a result, are often reliant on payday loans and overdrafts – products that carry a poverty premium and high risk of problem debt. The SteadyPay app charges a small weekly subscription fee, which gives users access to credit for top‑ups if their pay falls below their average income, either due to unpaid sick leave or are scheduled for fewer shifts. The app plugs directly to their bank account so it can monitor their income and provide a top‑up to make up the difference. SteadyPay has cultivated thousands of users, all of whom work in their market of underserved hourly and gig economy.
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SureClaim
Insurance B2B2C Mass Market Seed/Angel
Headquarters: India
Operating Countries: India
SureClaim aims to reduce the cost of healthcare for its users. The company provides recommendations for health insurance plans that match an individual user’s specific health risks. At the time of hospitalization, the platform recommends hospitals to users where their out‑of‑pocket expenses will be lowest based on their insurance plans. SureClaim's AI/ML‑based technology also enables the maximum monetary recovery of hospitalization expenses in insurance claims. Since launching in 2017, SureClaim has reached 76,000 registered users and earned more than USD 100,000 in total revenue.
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TagPay
Payments and Remittances B2B2C Mass Market Venture Series
Headquarters: France
Operating Countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, DRC, France, Gabon, Madagascar, Senegal, Togo
TagPay is a digital banking system that replaces legacy core banking systems and enables the creation of digital and neo‑banks. The digital banking system makes it possible for traditional banks to easily and affordably extend their financial services to previously unserved or underserved populations. Through a cloud‑based, mobile‑centric platform, local banks can build digital banks with limited initial investment and offer mobile money solutions for users without an existing bank account. TagPay’s customers often use third‑party agent networks and merchant distributors to provide cash withdrawal, money transfers, bill payment, and credit and savings products to their clients. Since launching the platform in 2019, TagPay has amassed an active user network of 2.6 million.
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TiendaPago
Credit B2B MSMEs Series B
Headquarters: Mexico
Operating Countries: Mexico, Peru
TiendaPago is an innovative and emerging fintech player that provides closed loop working capital financing targeted at “Mom and Pops”. Launched in 2014, Headquartered in Miami and with ongoing operations in Mexico and Peru, TiendaPago has developed a mobile based platform that specializes in inclusion finance and aims to tackle a key challenge in the traditional retail channel: Merchants often have limited cash available to pay distributors, which leads them to buy limited inventory, thereby limiting full potential sales and store sustainability. By leveraging FMCG partnerships and using inventory purchases to assess the creditworthiness of merchants, TiendaPago creates a targeted solution designed to give both distributors and merchants the opportunity to grow their businesses.
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Trust Stamp
Infrastructure B2B2C Mass Market Series A
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: Mexico, Poland, United Kingdom, United States
Trust Stamp delivers privacy‑preserving biometric identity authentication technology. Around the world, 1.1 billion people are without any form of viable identification, limiting their ability to access financial services. Many biometric identity systems have limited or no interoperability and lack proper storage of sensitive data, both of which make it difficult for individuals to access or manage their personal data. Trust Stamp transforms biometric and other identity data into unique hashed‑tokenized identities that can be verified anywhere in the world, both online and offline, so the user can authenticate quickly and seamlessly. The company’s cross‑industry customers include those that need to verify the identity of their end users and employees. In 2019, Trust Stamp earned USD 2.1 million in total revenue.
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Turaco
Insurance B2B2C Low‑Income Seed/Angel
Headquarters: Kenya
Operating Countries: Kenya, Uganda
Turaco is an inclusive insurtech startup that frees people from the fear of financial shocks. The company works through sector‑agnostic partnerships with local businesses to design and distribute simple and useful health and life insurance products to their end‑users in emerging markets. Presently, Turaco has a footprint in Kenya and Uganda where they offer low‑cost insurance cover for as little as USD 2 on flexible monthly payment plans. To date, they have administered over 155,000 policies with 31,000 active users and 1,800 claims paid in an average turnaround time of less than 72 hours. Turaco is working toward actualizing its audacious vision of insuring a billion people within the next 25 years, doubling the current global standing.
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UangMe
Credit B2C Low‑Income Series A
Headquarters: Indonesia
Operating Countries: Indonesia
UangMe provides unsecured short-term loans and installment loans to underbanked individuals through its mobile lending app. The company aims to provide services to the estimated 300 million financially underserved people in Southeast Asia, starting in Indonesia with customers who have a bank account but are unable to secure a loan from a traditional financial institution. For the retail lenders it works with, UangMe also provides wealth management products to its customers through its app. UangMe has 4.3 million registered users with total disbursed loans of USD 220 million.
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Verismart
Infrastructure B2B2C MSMEs Series A
Headquarters: United States
Operating Countries: India, Singapore, UAE, United States, Vietnam
Verismart is an identity blockchain platform which automates KYC and data sharing between enterprises, third‑parties, and regulators, driven by the consent of users. The company caters to banks, telecoms, healthcare, and insurance providers to ensure user data is protected from potential abuse, spam, and identity fraud. The enterprise customers are able to monetize the data through personalized product recommendations, but it is driven by the consent of the user in order to build deeper trust. Customers can share data safely, confidently and efficiently for uses such as alternative data assessment and risk management through a blockchain‑based protocol, which removes process redundancies, simplifies customer on‑boarding, and brings down customer acquisition costs. Verismart has reached 1.2 million registered end‑users since launching.
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ZigWay
Infrastructure B2C Low‑Income Self‑Funded
Headquarters: Myanmar
Operating Countries: Myanmar
ZigWay helps low income families access household essentials affordably. It offers a monthly subscription service that enables households to purchase quality products in bulk, such as rice and cooking oil, which saves them up to 20 percent compared to making small purchases. Subscribers are offered a flexible payment plan at no extra cost, which ZigWay supports through its proprietary, machine learning-based credit scoring model. ZigWay ensures accessibility by empowering “Super Users” to register their neighbors, request services, and make payments on their behalf. ZigWay has piloted with over 500 customers, delivering enough food for over one million meals.
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