$10.3 M raised by Untapped Global to empower emerging market entrepreneurs with smart asset finance
Untapped Global has received a pre-seed round of $10.3 million in debt and equity to help develop its smart asset financing strategy, which funds revenue-generating assets for entrepreneurs and SMEs in Africa and Latin America.
Untapped Global, with offices in San Francisco, Africa, and Europe and an all-female investment leadership team, aspires to help the next billion entrepreneurs reach their full potential by linking frontier market innovators to global investors both online and in person.
The firm just launched its public beta platform, which leverages real-time data to deliver transparency and insights to foreign investors wishing to invest in Africa and other emerging countries. Smart Asset Financing employs IoT from on-the-ground assets to analyze investment risk and provide real-time data on investment performance to investors in order to ensure attractive returns.
Untapped Global has financed assets for over 5,000 entrepreneurs working in areas such as clean water, solar, e-mobility, and inclusive fintech across a dozen countries in Africa and Latin America. Paga Group, for example, has partnered with Untapped to make POS systems more accessible for SMEs across Africa.
“Our goal at Paga Group is to make it simple for one billion people to pay, get paid, and access financial services,” said Paga CEO Tayo Oviosu. “The team at Untapped is aligned with that goal, and our current partnership showcases its objective to ensure that entrepreneurs have the opportunity to scale to their full potential.”
Accredited investors may now utilize the Untapped investing platform to track the performance of their assets in real-time. Anyone may join up for the platform, and retail investors will be able to use it by the end of 2022. The fast digitalisation happening throughout Africa and other frontier markets, according to Jim Chu, CEO and creator of Untapped Global, makes this the best moment to investigate investing in these countries.
“There’s a US$5.2 trillion funding gap for SMEs in emerging markets, such as Africa, Asia and Latin America. We created Untapped to get capital to entrepreneurs in markets who are often excluded from funding opportunities, while simultaneously ensuring transparency for investors. This is just the beginning of the democratization of investing around the world. Our data has shown that for every US $1 invested, more than US$3 of value is created in local economies,” he said.
