Portfolio Partner Profile
Lendable MSME Fintech Credit Fund
Lendable, an emerging market debt finance provider, focuses on strengthening access to debt capital for small business owners across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Lendable’s latest $100 million fund, The MSME Fintech Credit Fund, is designed to unlock access to financial services for over 150,000 Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
Lendable is using the Lendable MSME Fintech Credit Fund (“LMFCF”) to provide credit to African and Asian fintech companies, which will enable them to offer fair credit facilities to MSMEs. This helps promote wealth creation, financial inclusion, and economic growth across these regions, while simultaneously creating infrastructure to improve these MSMEs’ access to fair credit and financial services into the future.
LMFCF uses Lendable's proprietary Risk Engine, which analyses live borrower data to help enhance loan underwriting and improve risk management. For example, the Risk Engine has been able to accurately forecast the impact of adverse weather, election unrest, COVID-19 lockdowns, and other local events.
LMFCF implements an impact framework which tracks all fintechs in the portfolio across 3 pillars of Financial Inclusion, Opportunity Creation, and Access to Essential Goods and Services. The fund also offers gender lens-focused technical assistance to support fintechs in increasing their knowledge, skills, and tools to grow the impact of their business through gender equality mainstreaming.
Featured Impact Story
Impact Story
Financing to support small business owners during the pandemic
Jakarta-based KoinWorks is one of the companies funded by the Lendable MSME Fintech Credit Fund. KoinWorks is a licensed peer to peer lending platform that provides affordable financial services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as an alternative to traditional financial institutions. The company utilizes machine learning technology to match lenders & borrowers. KoinWorks provides a platform for retail investors to diversify their funds towards the underserved SME sector in Indonesia.
Eunike Adelia, founder of Jakarta-based coffee shop Kopitagram, is one of the borrowers funded through KoinWorks. She aspires to create a comfortable space for people to get together with their friends or family for just a casual chat or working while having a glass of their favorite iced coffee. In the midst of the pandemic, funding from KoinWorks helps her business to keep thriving. She also knew that sooner or later she would need to expand. The funding has helped Eunike open new branches of Kopitagram in other locations in Jakarta and other cities. Currently, Kopitagram has four branches and is opening soon in Bogor this coming March (2022). The opening of these new branches is of course followed by the addition of employees, helping people in the midst of a pandemic to get back on their feet.
Business: https://www.instagram.com/kopitagram/
Blog: https://koinworks.com/testimonial/eunike-adelia-kopitagram/
Photo: Courtesy of KoinWorks
Impact Story
Access to finance with a gender lens
Lidi Ernawati, a Surabaya-based self-taught small business owner, is another one of the borrowers funded through KoinWorks. She has been selling mothers’ & kids’ supplies online on a marketplace for around 5 years. She was working as a store attendant before starting her journey in online selling. She learned everything from scratch and realized that one of her challenges was in stocking supplies, especially during big sale events. Funding from KoinWorks helps her to stock supplies for her store. Now, she doesn’t need to be worried about customer orders since she always has her stock ready. As her business keeps growing, she is glad that her business can help empower her unemployed neighbors. Photo: Courtesy of KoinWorks
Impact Story
Inclusive transportation
Planet42 is a socially inclusive car subscription platform funded by the Lendable MSME Fintech Credit Fund. Planet42 started with the objective of fighting transport inequality by putting cars in the hands of people who are unfairly ignored by banks in major developing economies like South Africa, Mexico, and Brazil. Not having a car limits access to employment and educational opportunities, inhibiting financial inclusion. “Our car subscription is socially inclusive. For us, the differentiating factor is our customers would not have a car without us,” says CEO and co-founder Eerik Oja. Planet42 buys second-hand cars, which lowers the unit cost compared to a subscription model that purchases new cars. Customers can find suitable cars using Planet42’s tools, which includes its proprietary algorithms, from the over 700 dealers in the network. The company then buys the car and rents it to the customer.
Small Business
Microfinance
Gender Equity
