Two Kenyan firms – Pezesha and MarketForce – have joined forces to offer their customers convenient credit options.

The duo plan to provide affordable inventory and wholesale distribution financing to MarketForce merchants.

MarketForce helps consumer brands to optimize the delivery process of consumer goods and services to retailers and consumers.

The firm achieves this by closing the gap in the last mile distribution to maximize the efficiency across the distribution and sales value chain.

Meanwhile, Pezesha – a peer-to-peer micro-lending startup, connects lenders with high-quality, low-income borrowers.

The two startups are now in a partnership to ensure that Pezesha provides credit to MarketForce merchants who run small retail businesses locally.

The partnership aims to provide distributors and merchants with real-time access to affordable inventory credit options.

Both firms will offer their customers value-added services like financial literacy and digital tools that will help retailers streamline their transactional records.

According to the duo, they aim to reach 10,000 merchants and help them boost their sales by up to 25% with access to affordable inventory credit.

‘’We are excited to collaborate with the innovative Pezesha team to provide the much-needed inventory financing option to our customers,’’ said Tesh Mbaabu, CEO of MarketForce.

‘’We have co-designed a credit product that is instantly accessible and affordable to ensure that our retailers never run out of stock.’’

‘’The partnership with MarketForce is timely as it allows Pezesha to incorporate credit in the existing distribution process in a cost-effective way,’’ said Hilda Moraa, CEO of Pezesha.

TIBU, a Kenyan e-health start-up, has raised an undisclosed amount in a recent funding round and they hope to scale to bigger heights with this new investment.

For those who do not know this company, they specialise in deploying medical assets and assistance to patients at a time and place of their choosing. It is one of the moves towards modern and future healthcare advancement, allowing healthcare seekers to choose which services they need, where they need such and match with someone willing to meet their needs at that point in time.

Built in 2019 (although the plan had been in place since 2016), TIBU has reached over 10,000 clients from all across the country.

According to the company CEO, some of the intended plans for the cash includes setting up a high-tech micro laboratory.

This means that patient samples do not have to be taken back to a physical lab somewhere else for analysis when it can be analysed in real time with the right tech. That improves the services that the health practitioners signed up to the start-up can render, boosts the image of the brand and delivers better healthcare to the clients.

At the same time, some of the cash will also be earmarked for marketing and business development.

The start-up is going strong already. On the back of that, they also plan on hosting a series A funding round in September. By then, we are sure more investors would have heard about the good work that this start-up is doing and want to get in on the train.

ScholarX was launched in 2016 with the sole aim of allowing users access a wide range of scholarships that matches their needs at intent at the time.

The start-up has grown rapidly since then, being accepted into a host of laudable accelerator programmes and accessing a series of funding in the process. To even better their services, the company has now secured the rights to work with Airtel, enabling it to further expand its services to more Nigerians.

The partnership with Airtel introduces a new mobile learning platform dubbed ‘LearnAM.’ This platform has been designed such that it offers content in the local languages (Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo) while also incorporating Pidgin English. Thus, it makes sense that they can reach a wider audience base and provide quality eLearning to them all.

At the same time, it should be noted that partnering with Airtel this way means that they can tap into the wide customer base which Airtel has built over time to deliver this platform to even more people.

Securing a GSMA Fund for Mobile Internet Adoption and Digital Inclusion to make this happen, ScholarX is committed to taking affordable education and learning opportunities to all and sundry.

In what can be said to be the country’s latest policy attack on fintech startups, the SEC has now asked trading and investment platforms to stop offering foreign stocks to Nigerians.

It should be noted that Robinhood-style aps like Chaka, Risevest and such other investment platforms have been offering Nigerians access to both local and international stocks which they can invest their money in. The latest circular from the SEC has deemed such activities illegal and any fintech that does not stay off offering such services might soon face the long arm of the law.

This is not the first time that SEC Nigeria is making such a move. Back in December of last year, the body accused Chaka, an investment platform of this sort, of advertising and selling stocks illegally in the country. The fintech came out to deny the allegations via its CEO and ever since, we have not heard anything else of the matter. Till today, anyway.

The users of these apps have been in a state of panic as they do not know what would happen to their funds which are already on those platforms. However, official emails have started going out to users to assure them that their funds are stull safe and secure as they work with the SEC to regulate the situation.