CreditChek, a Nigerian credit data infrastructure and financial intelligence startup, has secured $600,000 in fresh funding to support its expansion into East Africa.
The funding round was led by Janngo Capital, with participation from existing investor Assembly Investors and new backers Vastly Valuable Ventures and Unipeg Capital. The investment will support the company’s entry into Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, marking its first expansion beyond Nigeria.
Founded in 2022 by Kingsley Ibe and Lionel Orishane, CreditChek has positioned itself as a critical infrastructure provider within Africa’s financial services ecosystem.
“We’re building the data infrastructure that allows lenders to access richer, more reliable insights,” said Kingsley Ibe, co-founder and chief executive of CreditChek. This funding allows us to scale our infrastructure and partnerships in East Africa, bringing us closer to a future where credit decisions are faster, more inclusive, and more reliable.”
Solving One of Africa’s Biggest Lending Problems
Access to finance remains one of the most significant barriers facing African businesses, particularly micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
According to development finance estimates, Africa’s MSME financing gap exceeds $330 billion, reflecting the difficulty many businesses face in securing loans despite growing demand for capital.
A major contributor to this challenge is the fragmented nature of financial data across the continent. Many individuals and businesses operate with limited formal credit histories, making it difficult for lenders to accurately assess risk.
As a result, financial institutions often adopt conservative lending practices, restricting access to credit or charging higher interest rates to compensate for uncertainty.
CreditChek believes better data can help solve that problem.
The company provides lenders with credit intelligence, income verification and risk assessment tools designed to improve lending decisions and reduce non-performing loans.
Building Africa’s Credit Intelligence Layer
Rather than lending directly, CreditChek supplies the data and intelligence that lenders use to evaluate borrower creditworthiness.
Its flagship products include Credit Insight, which enables access to cross-border credit history information, and Income Insight, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that analyses bank statements to verify income levels, spending behaviour and cash-flow patterns.
The objective is to provide lenders with a more complete understanding of both a borrower’s willingness and capacity to repay.
The startup claims that loans underwritten using its data infrastructure have recorded delinquency rates more than 75 per cent lower than those processed through traditional underwriting methods.
If sustained at scale, such improvements could have significant implications for lending profitability and financial inclusion across emerging markets.
Why East Africa Is the Next Growth Frontier
CreditChek’s expansion strategy focuses on three of East Africa’s most dynamic financial markets: Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.
The company says the selection was driven by rapid growth in digital lending, mobile money adoption and formal financial inclusion.
Kenya remains one of Africa’s most advanced fintech ecosystems. According to industry data, licensed Digital Credit Providers had disbursed approximately 7.5 million loans worth KES133.5 billion (around $1 billion) as of February 2026.
Uganda has also experienced strong growth in digital financial services, with mobile money payments increasing at an average annual rate of 25 per cent since the 2020/2021 financial year.
Meanwhile, Rwanda has emerged as one of Africa’s financial inclusion success stories, recording a financial inclusion rate of 96 per cent in 2024.
Together, these markets present significant opportunities for companies providing the infrastructure that underpins lending and credit decision-making.
Investor Confidence in Alternative Data
For investors, CreditChek represents a growing category of African fintechs focused not on consumer-facing products but on the underlying infrastructure powering financial services.
This segment has attracted increasing attention as investors seek scalable business models capable of serving multiple financial institutions simultaneously.
“We are proud to lead this funding round in CreditChek, a company building the credit data infrastructure Africa needs to scale responsible lending,” said Fatoumata Bâ, Founder and Executive Chair of Janngo Capital. “By enabling lenders to make better decisions using alternative data, the company is helping expand access to financing for millions of underserved individuals and businesses while addressing Africa’s estimated $331 billion MSME financing gap.”
CreditChek has already begun extending its reach beyond conventional financial institutions. The company previously received backing from Baobab Network and has partnered with Bboxx under Nigeria’s Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) programme.
The partnership aims to support solar financing for up to 17 million rural households, demonstrating how alternative credit assessment tools can unlock financing opportunities in sectors traditionally underserved by banks.
Such initiatives highlight a broader trend in African fintech, where data-driven underwriting is increasingly being used to support renewable energy, agriculture, digital commerce and other sectors requiring innovative financing models.
A Profitable Expansion Story
Unlike many early-stage startups pursuing growth at the expense of profitability, CreditChek says it is already profitable in Nigeria.
The company operates a pay-as-you-go business model, charging lenders and financial institutions a fixed fee for access to its credit intelligence services.
In 2025 alone, the startup processed more than $60 million in credit applications across one million unique customer profiles, providing evidence of growing demand for alternative credit assessment tools.
As digital lending expands across Africa, companies capable of supplying reliable borrower intelligence are expected to play an increasingly important role in the continent’s financial infrastructure.
For CreditChek, the East African expansion represents more than geographic growth. It is a test of whether data-driven underwriting can help unlock billions of dollars in untapped lending opportunities while reducing the risks that have historically constrained credit access across Africa.
Talking Points
It is encouraging to see CreditChek focusing on one of the biggest structural challenges facing African financial services: the lack of reliable and accessible credit data needed to support responsible lending at scale.
By combining alternative data, income verification, and AI-powered underwriting tools, the company is helping lenders make more informed decisions while potentially reducing the risks that have historically limited access to credit for individuals and small businesses.
At Techparley, we see this as a critical layer of Africa’s fintech evolution. While much attention is often given to consumer-facing apps, the infrastructure that enables smarter lending decisions may ultimately have a greater impact on financial inclusion across the continent.
The company’s expansion into Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda is particularly notable because these markets have rapidly growing digital lending ecosystems and increasing demand for credit products. Better credit intelligence could help lenders serve more customers with greater confidence.
However, scaling across multiple markets will require navigating different regulatory frameworks, credit reporting systems, and consumer behaviours. Building trust with financial institutions and maintaining data accuracy across borders will be essential to long-term success.
As CreditChek expands its footprint, there is an opportunity to become a key credit intelligence infrastructure provider for Africa’s lending ecosystem. If executed effectively, the company could play a meaningful role in narrowing the continent’s multi-billion-dollar SME financing gap while supporting more sustainable and inclusive access to credit.
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