Finplus

Proven tech for your fintech. Finplus is building new credit & commerce technologies to digitize trade ecosystems & help 100M+ SMEs access affordable credit.

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

At @finplusgroup we build financial drills, not ploughs. Our aim is to go deep, not wide. To help our clients dig wells, not merely holes in the ground. The difference? What comes out of it.

What’s not obvious from the surface is that these seemingly separate wells often connect through tunnels - an ecosystem. When the right tunnels connect the right wells at the right depth, the entire #ecosystem is enriched.

After bootstraping for almost 9 years, we stay away from flashy headlines with big, unsubstantiated claims (already an epidemic in #fintech & worsened in the age of #AI). We only announce new wells after they have been productive for years.

2 weeks ago @moseskemibaro got a glimpse into the unconventional machine that is Finplus. He said “I want to whip you guys for keeping so quiet for so long.”

My cofounders @Bantab, @Penjog and I laughed, but we knew he was right. We need to talk about our work and #impact a bit more loudly. Now is as good a time to start as any. Thanks for sharing Moses - and for not whipping us too hard. 😊

#entrepreneurship #storytelling

[Moses Kemibaro @moseskemibaro]

[New Blog Post] The quiet rise of Finplus Group - an ecosystem-driven fintech in Kenya & Africa - and the people behind the platform that's doing it all at once

https://t.co/LLbfsxhEEP

#Finplus #Fintech #FinancialServices #Finance #DigitalFinancialServices #Technology #Banks #Banking #Business #Apps #DigitalTransformation #Kenya #Africa

@finplusgroup

[Bernard Banta @Bantab]

It was great meeting the legends of Ruby and Ruby on Rails and giving a keynote talk about https://t.co/MpwrDJ4eyo alongside @yukihiro_matz for the second time. @hasumikin, @ruby_african, @finplusgroup, #rubyworld #sanarei

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

The @GoogleStartups alumni summit in Nairobi was a welcome glade in the jungle that is entrepreneurship.

The effervescent Lorna dazzled us with many practical applications for Google’s latest AI magic, while Farzana took us to the Google #leadership school, where a fellow founder/ceo & I actually helped solve each other’s most burning problems.

The cherry on top was running into James Odede for the first time since giving a talk on #entrepreneurship at Maseno University 13 years ago! He went from the audience to becoming a fellow founder doing amazing work in Aquaculture - a perfect full-circle moment.

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

2/ Following fierce competition:

🥇1st place went to Bryan Kimani, Victor Turuthi, Brenda Muthoni & Jacinta Mwangi.

🥈2nd place went to Ezra Siundu, Wanjeri kariuki, Kenneth Joseph & Chris Bartonjo

🥉3rd place went to Richard Fulgensio Matovu, Mark Ndungu & Denis G. Wachira.

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

October is #hackathon season at Finplus & this year we shook things up: All 3 teams:

• Worked on the same problem

• Knew the problem (but not their teammates) in advance

• Could maximally use #AI on all levels

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

A spontaneous late night text from a customer can instantly flip an otherwise hard week.

The @finplusgroup team continues to be as much a joy to work with this #CustomerServiceWeek, as they are every other week.

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

As the Keynote speaker to Circle Innovation & Human Planet’s first Circularity Launchpad in Nairobi, I shared for the first time, the exciting work @finplusgroup has been quietly doing in the #waste & #circularity industry over the past 2 years, solving underlying problems.

From creating a national deposit return system that will enable users to get paid for returning clean post-consumer waste, to locally designing & building automated collection points capable of receiving & funelling myriad waste types such as Carton(!), Plastics, Aluminum, Glass & Paper to licensed waste collectors. All in compliance with the Sustainable Waste Management (Extended Producer Responsibility) Regulations, 2024.

The waste problem is really a systems & technology problem. Now that #Kenya has a suitable policy framework and a committed regulator to steward it in National Environment Management Authority - KE (NEMA), the private sector needs to adapt. As a natural extension of our ecosystem solutions for consumer goods companies, Finplus is working behind the scenes to provide stakeholders with locally relevant technology needed to realize the full ambition of the #EPR regulations. What started as a software project to solve tracking, returns & micropayments in light of impending EPR regulations, expanded organically into our first ever hardware project - and a rather ambitious one at that. More on this soon.

99.9% waste collection is of course only the tip of the iceberg and The Circularity Launchpad showed me that multiple companies are already living in this envisioned future by building the rest of the funnel. Turning that waste into the next generation of products & creating new alternatives to current harmful materials or methods. Our future appears to be in promising hands, as long as they can turn these innovations into sustainable businesses in the short to medium term.

In the long term, zero-waste material science is the end game of true circularity. Until then however, we continue to build for the current reality. Back to work bringing this technology to a residential area, shop, fuel station, school etc. near you soon. 🦾

[Circle Innovation @CircleInnovtn]

Our keynote speaker @TheKageniMind inspired us by sharing his entrepreneurial lessons and unveiled @finplusgroup bold innovations in #waste & #circularity; from deposit return systems to automated collection points for multiple waste streams. #DemoDay2025 #Impactinnovation

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

Many @GoogleStartups BFF founders will tell you how it helped them raise VC funding ($379M cumulatively so far), but our story is exactly the opposite.

It was summer 2021, we were in the middle of 3 separate multi-year enterprise sales cycles and the bank balance was making me nervous. Every founder knows this feeling. Deals were pushed to the next quarter and with it the critical revenue we needed to grow as a bootstrapped company. I spoke with my cofounders for the first time about potentially having to raise some money so as not to sacrifice our momentum. We had raised some debt early on and were not sure if we wanted to go down that path again or simply do a SAFE and avoid the repayments. After all, this was the ZIRP golden era - fundraising cycles were short, rounds were massive, valuations were sky high and the dilution low. It was tempting.

I was on my honeymoon when I found out about and decided to apply for BFF. A few weeks later we were accepted into the inaugural cohort. The grant arrived just in time to plug a looming hole in our runway. We hired 3 additional engineers months earlier than we otherwise would have and the resulting product velocity has kept us in the lead.

The following quarter, 2 of those long awaited enterprise deals closed and the rest is history. Google BFF literally helped us stay bootstrapped, which despite its many constraints, has also made it easier to take many unconventional-yet-directionally-correct bets over the past 3 years. An additional 3 Million loans, $1Bn in GTV and 2 million users later, it was the right path for @finplusgroup.

Could we still raise a round someday? Maybe, but if we do it will be under better circumstances. The point is, fundraising numbers make headlines, but there is more than one way to be good for startups. BFF was great for us.

It was therefore a pleasure spending 3 days last week with fellow BFF Africa founders at the Alumni Summit in Nairobi. We traded war stories, shared challenges we are facing building our companies, crowdsourced potential solutions from a crowd that actually knows, expanded our networks and had an all-round great time. Thanks to the Google team for putting together a wonderful summit.

To my fellow founders… Here’s to the journey - may all our roads lead us where our dreams await. 🥂 ✨

#startups #entrepreneurship #funding #google #africa

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

🍾 Congrats to the winners! Some of these solutions will be developed into full-fledged tools that can add real value to the business.

Special thanks to our judges Maina, Kip & @TheKageniMind!

📸 by Denis Wachira

See you all at the next Hackathon!

#fintech #ecommerce #africa

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

Last week at our product team blitz #hackathon 🛠️.

3 teams get 3 hours to scope, design & prototype software for 1 of 3 challenges.

After a demo & code review, 3 judges score them on: Design, Usability, Functionality, Creativity & Presentation.

Prizes:💰Cash🥇Bragging rights

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

After an ultra-competitive day:

🥇Richard, Evelyn, Ezra & Mark won Gold for their #support ticketing solution

🥈Bryan, Brenda & Victor won Silver for their #B2B client #onboarding solution

🥉Robert, Jacinta, Nima & Kenneth won Bronze for their #people portal solution

👏👏👏

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

It‘s always great when the zoom windows come to life. Saw new and old faces alike at the @Mambu_com HQ in Amsterdam yesterday and met Fernando Zandona for first time since taking over as CEO to discuss the future of our partnership.

Mambu and @finplusgroup have been partners for 7 years and counting. We’ve accomplished a lot together, but our shared belief is that we are still only scratching the surface of what’s possible. The best still lies ahead. #fintech #cloud #neobanks

[Kageni Wilson @TheKageniMind]

2023 was a rollercoaster year. We processed 7 million lending transactions, hitting new All-Time-Highs for both loans and collections at @finplusgroup. In aggregate, lenders on our platform were far more cautious in ’23 vs ’22, reducing the average loan size by 5% and only growing volumes at 50% the rate they did in ’22 . The outlier here was a lender in Uganda who grew their loan volumes by 660% in ’23 vs 80% in ’22.

We grew revenue 146% with zero logo or revenue churn despite the B2B software recession. Decent for a bootstrapped company growing sustainably with zero paid marketing.

We remained Cashflow Positive despite growing our team and currency devaluation pressure. We are default-alive with infinite runway for the foreseeable future.

We grew GMV 220% on our white-label digital commerce platform, hitting new All-Time-Highs for orders, volume and average basket values.

We launched our white-label B2B eCommerce & SME lending platform with flagship customer Absa Kenya who committed to lend SMEs $600M on it in the first 3 years.

The entire team rose to the occasion in spectacular ways. I’m incredibly excited about what’s lined up for 2024!

#fintech #africa #startups #growth #tech

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

Finplus is on a mission to unlock meaningful & affordable financing for 10M+ SMEs in Africa, and today’s launch marks a step-change in the speed at which we can progress towards this goal.

Exciting times lie ahead!

#impact #fintech #ecommerce #africa

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

Our CEO @TheKageniMind on stage at today’s launch of #WezeshaStock, a new solution from @AbsaKenya providing instant order financing to SME retailers with starting amounts from KES 100k up to KES 10Million at unbeatable interest rates - all powered by @finplusgroup.

#SME #Credit

[Finplus @finplusgroup]

Email wezeshastock[@]https://t.co/nswUW0GDFv to join #WezeshaStock

[Bernard Banta @Bantab]

Wanna join #WezeshaStock?

[Bernard Banta @Bantab]

Why you should use #WezeshaStock #WezeshaStockLaunch

[Bernard Banta @Bantab]

Proud of team @finplusgroup and @AbsaKenya for lauching #WezeshaStock today. 👏👏🎊