A venture capital (VC) firm with its headquarters in Cape Town, HAVAC, has invested US $500,000 in the Kenyan business FinAccess, which digitizes farming cooperatives and SACCOs in the East Africa area.
FinAccess was established in 2017 by CEO Barclay Paul Okari and provides SACCOs and cooperatives with a market-leading, entirely unique SaaS solution.
Fincore, a financial software solution, and Grobox, an agricultural software solution, are the two main products of the firm. In contrast to Grobox, which is an operations management software solution for cooperatives and manages and records inventory, production, sales, payments, and financial data, FinCore digitizes and automates the whole financial back office and product activities of SACCOs.
As part of a pre-Series A fundraising round, HAVAC has invested US $500,000 from its US $20 million HAVAC Universum Core African Fund to help FinAccess maintain its market dominance in Kenya and grow into other markets. With Tanzania, Zambia, and Rwanda debuting in the upcoming months, live pilots are already under progress in Uganda.
“Financial inclusion for underserved Africans is at the heart of our business,” said Barclay. “Digitisation ultimately releases credit and other vital financial services so farmers can increase productivity and efficiency. We are very excited to partner with HAVAÍC and bring our software solutions to more African communities.”
FinAccess is resolving significant issues for marginalized populations in Africa, according to Rob Heath, the partner at HAVAC.
“The team’s growth and ability to perform over the last few years has been incredible to watch, and there is so much scope to continue growing across Kenya and beyond. FinAccess is 100 per cent aligned with our investment thesis to make an impact by supporting early-stage, high-potential companies that solve real-world challenges through technology. We look forward to supporting their unfolding growth journey,” he said.
