Ghanaian fintech startup Oze secures undisclosed funding round to scale lending solution
Summary
Ghanaian fintech startup Oze, which provides digital recordkeeping tools with embedded finance products to MSMEs, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from investors including Visa and DEG to help it scale its lending management solution.Launched in beta in 2018, Oze is a mobile app that helps small businesses record their sales, expenses, payables, and receivables. Existing investors including Speedinvest and Africinvest, through its Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, also invested.With this funding, Oze plans to scale its Lending Management System (LMS), a tool designed to enable financial institutions including banks, microfinance institutions, and fintechs to offer unsecured, no-collateral digital loans to merchants and small businesses. The LMS is powered by Ozes proprietary machine-learning credit risk algorithm, which ensures smarter and more efficient lending decisions.This funding will accelerate our mission to empower small businesses across Africa. By scaling our Lending Management System, we can help more financial institutions unlock the potential of SMEs and drive financial inclusion at an unprecedented scale, said Meghan McCormick, Ozes co-founder and CEO.In partnership with commercial banks such as Ecobank, Oze operates in Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Benin, Rwanda, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho, with plans to expand further across the continent. The platform provides banks and lenders with tools to automate digital lending, while MSMEs benefit from easy-to-use business management software to track sales, expenses, and customer information.