Pivoting into fintech space, Uganda’s gnuGrid raised $612k in seed round

Solar Sentra was launched in 2019 by David Opio and James Dailey with the goal of streamlining and automating the highly fragmented solar industry in Uganda and beyond by using AI-optimized sensors to monitor solar systems and collect data on power usage that solar companies can use to tailor service delivery.

To help solar firms run more effectively and at reduced costs, gnuGrid packaged this technology with digital payments, predictive analytics, customer profiling, and data management, among other features.

The business began the year with a capital raising, which it has now increased to reach a total of US$612,500 for its seed round. The money comes from a small group of angel investors, giving gnuGrid a pre-money value of US$6.25 million. In 2019, the business raised $50,000 to build its technology engine, pilot the product, and release it to the market.

However, gnuGrid’s product has changed, with the company announcing that it has pivoted to become a licensed credit reference bureau to help many informal and formal financial and credit institutions de-risk their investments and build reputational collateral for last-mile credit consumers or borrowers.

“gnuGrid has the system necessary to onboard the millions of unbanked/tiers four consumers in Uganda – all of Africa, actually,” Opio said.

“It is the first-ever local credit reference bureau licensed by the Bank of Uganda to provide credit reference services to enable lenders to know how borrowers repay their loans.”

The startup money was utilised to create up data hosting servers and a cutting-edge customer support center, hire employees, develop the CRB platform, and implement sales and marketing initiatives. With the transaction now completed, gnuGrid will engage with PwC on a US$10 million Series A fundraising.

“The US$10 million raised will go into scaling the CRB services to the last mile informal financial institutions, collecting data from several credit providers, expanding the data hosting infrastructure, enhancing data security and protection, onboarding more staff members, and scaling the CRB solution to other Africa countries, starting with Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, and Zambia,” said Opio.