Lipa Later, a buy-now-pay-later company operating in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Nigeria, has raised Ksh. 1.4 billion (USD 12 million) investment from a consortium of investors. These include Cauris Finance, Lateral Frontiers VC, GreenHouse Capital, SOSV IV LLC, Sayani Investments and Axian Financial Services.
The funding, which is a mix of equity and debt, will help Lipa Later expand within its current markets and into new markets such as Ghana and Tanzania. The funding will also allow the company to provide its services to its current consumers supporting its exclusive partnerships with world-class merchants in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Other than the traditional offline method of buyers purchasing items in stores, Lipa Later has tapped into the rapidly growing online presence across Africa. Its buy now pay later payment model continues to enable merchants to sell products directly to consumers and pay for them in affordable monthly instalments. The company’s credit scoring and machine learning system further enables the consumer to sign up and get a credit limit in seconds without the need for bulky documentation or bulky credit approval process.
Speaking about the investment, Samakab Hashi, Partner at Lateral Frontier VC, one of Lipa Later’s first investors said, “Over the last few years, we have watched Eric Muli, CEO of Lipa Later and his team put together the building blocks for Pan-African expansion and this round of funding takes Lipa Later one step closer to being the dominant Buy-Now-Pay-Later player on the continent.”
On her part, Ruby Nimkar, Partner at GreenHouse Capital added, “Lipa Later is not only changing the consumer credit landscape across Africa, which to date has been largely inaccessible for most but also catalyzing the future of shopping, e-commerce, and payments. They have done this in a truly product and customer-led way that benefits both merchants and consumers and has proven to be incredibly scalable across multiple markets.”
In appreciation of his new investors, Eric Muli, the Co-Founder and CEO of Lipa Later said, “We are excited to be working with our investors as we look to grow and expand to more markets in Africa. In the next 12 months we are looking to grow and double our presence in the existing markets, even as we open in three to five new markets in Africa.”