Trade Lenda, a Nigerian financial technology company, has been named a semifinalist in the prestigious Milken-Motsepe Prize in Fintech. This recognition, disclosed by the Milken Institute and the Motsepe Foundation, places Trade Lenda among 10 global fintechs chosen for their innovative solutions aimed at expanding financial inclusion across emerging and frontier markets.

The Milken-Motsepe Prize is designed to support startups that foster financial inclusion within their communities. As semifinalists, each of the 10 teams will receive $100,000 and the opportunity to participate in an Innovation Showcase. This event is scheduled for December 5-6, 2024, in Abu Dhabi, UAE, as part of the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit. During the showcase, teams will present their innovations to a panel of expert judges and investors. Three teams will then be selected to advance to the final round, with evaluation based on their ability to deliver solutions that significantly improve financial inclusion for under-resourced groups.

Emily Musil, Senior Director at the Milken Institute, emphasized the prize's objective: “By supporting these pioneering teams, we aim to foster financial inclusion and empower entrepreneurs who drive economic growth and opportunities in their communities. Our prizes help identify, support and celebrate talent to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit and empower visionaries to turn their ideas for a better future into reality.”

Trade Lenda, a Lagos-based company founded in May 2021 by Adewunmi Adeshina, Oluwatosin Ayodele, and Shina Arogundade, specializes in providing small businesses with quick and affordable access to credit, often with zero upfront collateral, within six hours. The startup utilizes a data-driven credit-scoring platform that evaluates character and capacity to bridge critical finance gaps for small retailers and suppliers. To date, Trade Lenda has extended credit to over 1,500 businesses, completing more than $2 million in disbursements with an average turnaround time of less than six hours. The company reported a growth of over 500 percent between 2021 and 2022 and secured $520,000 in a pre-seed funding round in January 2021. Adeshina Adewunmi serves as the CEO of Trade Lenda.

Over the next four months, Trade Lenda will compete against the other nine financial technology companies, which operate in nearly 30 countries across three continents. These teams will further test and scale their solutions, which will be rigorously evaluated for their impact, scalability, and sustainability. The other distinguished semifinalists include:

• AZA Finance (Kenya): A B2B FinTech company offering low-cost, efficient, and secure financial services, including payments, currency exchange, and treasury, across major currencies.
• Chapa (Ethiopia): Led by Nael Teklehaimanot, this online payment gateway provides a developer-friendly API to simplify integrating payment processing for Ethiopian businesses.
• Chumz (Kenya): Led by Sam Njuguna, Chumz is a gamified savings product that employs behavioral psychology to enable individuals to save at a low cost.
• Farmpawa (Uganda): Under the leadership of Moses Eteku, Farmpawa is a crowd farming platform that connects investors with real farming assets to empower farmers and foster sustainable agricultural growth.
• Flow Global (United Kingdom): Michael Rothe leads this liquidity engine, which assists retail merchants in expanding within the digital economy by addressing all their working capital requirements.
• Paycloud by Lipa Later (Kenya): Led by Eric Muli, this digital banking platform tackles late payments in Africa by offering seamless payment processing, payment splitting, automated invoicing, and comprehensive financial tools.
• Nyla Bank (Ghana): Mubarak Sumaila is building Africa’s first digital Islamic bank, aiming to empower one billion people with innovative, Shariah-compliant products and services aligned with ethical principles.
• Oze (Ghana): Meghan McCormick leads Oze, a digital lending platform that bridges Africa’s credit gap by providing banks with an SME-focused app that digitizes financial data, facilitating risk assessment and lending to small businesses.
• Verto (United Kingdom): Led by Rachel Coombs, Verto is a business-to-business cross-border payments platform for companies in emerging markets, leveraging a unified network to eliminate intermediary fees, manage 49 currencies, and expedite transaction settlements.

The Milken-Motsepe Prize will ultimately award a total of $2 million in prizes, culminating in a $1 million Grand Prize. Following the December showcase, the Grand Prize winner will be announced at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in Los Angeles in May.