Ghana-based fintech startup, OZÉ a platform that equips small business owners in Africa to make data-driven decisions to improve their performance, tap into networks, and access capital has just announced that it has secured $700k in capital from a seed round with investment from Anorak Ventures and Matuca Sarl and angel investors including Nigeria’s Rising Tide Africa along with existing investors Ingressive Capital and MEST.
According to a press statement by the fintech startup, the funding will be used to expand to Nigeria, promote a newly launched iOS version of its business app, and grow its team.
Using this data and machine learning, the startup predicts a business’ credit risk and provides it with affordable capital from its banking partners. OZÉ has over 25,000 registered users, with paying subscribers having recorded more than 250,000 transactions with a value of more than US$50 million via the app so far. In 2020, OZÉ piloted a small loan portfolio, with no defaults and a projected annual 43 per cent return on investment.
In an official press release, Dave Emnett, co-founder and COO provides insight into the plans of the fintech startup.
“I couldn’t be more excited about what’s next for OZÉ. We’re integrating with Paystack and other PSPs to allow our SMEs to accept and send payments through the app and partnering with more financial institutions to expand on the success of OZÉ’s approach to lending.”
A fintech for small businesses
Founded in 2018, OZÉ digitizes small businesses’ operations and provides them with access to affordable capital. With my many small businesses utilising traditional methods of recording on paper, with little to no formal business education, no credit history, weak to no collateral, and transparent operations, many lenders are not willing to invest in small businesses.
This is where OZÉ steps in. The fintech startup has created a business app that makes it easy for micro, small and medium enterprises to track their sales, expenses, and customer information.
The app analyses a business’s data and provides tailored recommendations, reports, and business education, allowing small business owners to scale up and improve their business model.
Furthermore, the data analysed provides OZÉ with a credit prediction of the small business and provide businesses with affordable capital. The app collects data from a business to predict its credit risk and as the fintech has partnered with various banks in Ghana it is able to provide small business users with affordable capital.
Meghan McCormick, co-founder, and CEO of OZÉ comments on the benefits of small businesses utilising the platform.
“The OZÉ Flywheel makes profitable lending to MSMEs possible for banks. Using OZÉ already screens for the type of entrepreneurs banks should want to lend to and as entrepreneurs keep using OZÉ they can access more funds at a lower risk to the bank.”
The fintech’s proprietary credit risk algorithm makes it profitable for banks to make no-collateral loans to MSMEs. The award-winning fintech claims to have over 25 000 registered users on its app, making it the largest online community for micro, small and medium enterprises in the region.
The OZÉ Business App
Users are able to access the easy-to-use platform from their smartphone device and able to perform the following tasks :
- Send digital receipts and invoices
- Remind customers to pay off their debts
- Record financials
With an in-built business dashboard, users are able to discover business trends.
