Renew Venture Lab program to assist entrepreneurs influencing Africa’s financial future
The Renew Venture Lab was established by the pan-African venture capital firm Renew Capital: The EmFi Series is a program created to find the top African tech entrepreneurs who will influence the continent’s financial landscape.
Renew Capital is a pan-African investment firm that was founded in 2012 by Matt and Laura Davis. It manages investments for a global network of HNIs, foundations, and family offices that are looking for both long-term social impact and financial returns. The company invests in tech-enabled businesses and asserts that it prioritizes the character and vision of its founders through a “founder first” approach.
The company announced the Renew Venture Lab with the EmFi Series, which is designed to assist startups in developing or enhancing the systems to provide their clients with credit. The firm launched its most recent fund in 2024.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are routinely shut out of formal financial services throughout Africa, not because they pose too much risk but rather because the data needed to evaluate them is underutilized. There is a $330 billion unrealized credit opportunity in Africa. Despite making up 90% of all private sector enterprises on the continent, SMEs are still largely excluded from formal banking. Less than one in five people in sub-Saharan Africa alone are able to obtain a loan from a traditional financial institution.
According to Renew Capital, tech companies are providing their clients with a data footprint that can be used to help them obtain credit in addition to offering small businesses creative solutions to run their operations. AI is enabling businesses to use data in novel ways to better understand their clients, and one of the best uses of this data in Africa is determining whether a client qualifies for a loan.
“Africa’s most important financial story is not being written by banks,” said Matthew Davis, co-CEO of Renew Capital. “It’s being written by tech founders who know their small business customers better than traditional lenders. The EmFi Series exists to help those founders build new financial products for their customers, and to back the best of them with real capital.”
Applications are open here until April 30.
