Asset-Financing Fintech M-Kopa Raises $75 Million For Expansion

(Bloomberg) -- M-Kopa Holdings raised $75 million in growth equity after a funding round led by Generation Investment Management LLP and Broadscale Group LLC.

The capital injection, with money from new investors including LocalGlobe LLP’s Latitude Fund and HEPCO Capital Management LLC, brings M-Kopa’s total equity funding to $190 million, according to an emailed statement. Existing investors CDC Group Plc and LGT Lightrock also participated.

The company has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana, and plans to enter other markets. M-Kopa will also expand its payments model beyond asset financing to include health insurance, cash loans and buy-now-pay-later merchant partnerships. It targets to reach 10 million customers in the coming years from two million, it said.

M-Kopa started in 2011 as a retailer of solar-powered electrical equipment on micro-payment terms. In sub-Saharan Africa, where 85% of the population survives on $5.50 per adult daily, access to credit is limited for under-banked, offline and hard-to-reach consumers, M-Kopa said.

“The company’s rapid customer growth demonstrates the massive unmet demand in this sector,” said Broadscale’s managing partner, Andrew Shapiro.

Investors have shown more interest in African technology enterprises since 2021 when startups on the continent raised a record $5 billion.

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