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The woman linking Africa’s micro-businesses to finance

Hilda Moraa is the Founder & CEO of Pezesha, a startup she founded in 2017 which offers a business-to-business (B2B) digital lending infrastructure towards affordable working capital for financially excluded SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Photo | Pool

What you need to know:

  • Hilda Moraa, is currently the Founder and CEO of Pezesha, a fintech firm, which offers credit to small businesses across Africa, with a dream of creating at least five million jobs in the next five years

At the end of August this year, Fintech firm Pezesha announced that it had raised a pre-series A investment of Sh1.32 billion (USD 11 million).

The funds, the start-up said, will see it scale its operations and enter new markets in Africa in the incoming months.

It was a big feat for the firm and the woman who sits at its helm.

“This investment has brought strategic investors to join our journey and the funds will be used to harness our growth and push our mission of reaching more Micro, small and medium-term businesses (MSMEs) with access to affordable working capital. We are also looking at additional financial products that grow small businesses,” says the Hilda Moraa the CEO of the founder of Pezesha.

The start-up that she founded in 2017, enables MSMEs to access funding easily by matching business owners with lending partners such as banks and microfinance institutions. 

Additionally, its credit-scoring APIs enable MSMEs to receive real-time loan offers to purchase stock and pay later. Pezesha also offers financial literacy courses and debt counselling to MSMEs who do not qualify for loans in order to improve their credit scoring and ensure responsible borrowing.


“Our clients are those small business owners who may not be able to borrow from banks because of lack of collateral. For example, if a small kiosk owner or retailer is looking to buy just-in-time stock from a distributor or supplier, but they do not have cash or working capital to purchase the goods, Pezesha, through our app, can offer them real-time credit to buy the goods from the supplier with flexible repayment terms,” Hilda shares. 

Hilda Moraa is the Founder & CEO of Pezesha, a startup she founded in 2017 which offers a business-to-business (B2B) digital lending infrastructure towards affordable working capital for financially excluded SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Photo | Pool


She notes that the amount of loan and interest one gets depends on the frequency of use within the Pezesha platform. The platform provides various tools with which the MSMEs interact with to improve their credit rating, meaning the interest charged and the amount of money given might vary from one MSME to another. 

“The chances of default are almost nil because our credit rating system can detect and proactively give loans that can be fully repaid,” Hilda says of the firm which has footprints in Kenya, Uganda, and Ghana. The fintech offers productive credit to tech-enabled platforms such as e-commerce outlet Twiga Foods, online retailer Jumia, as well as retail and distribution startup Marketforce, among others.


Hilda, who is in her early 30s, is not only the CEO and founder but also an award-winning serial tech entrepreneur and author. She has more than 10 years of experience in Fintech and working with multinationals like Coca-Cola where she developed and deployed mobility innovations. She previously founded WezaTele, a Fintech startup in Kenya that was acquired in 2015. She is also the youngest board member in Konza Technopolis.

She left a cushy life at CocaCola and later iHub to be a full-time entrepreneur. Then, her family and friends thought she was crazy for taking a big risk. 

But she consoled herself she was still young, to take all the risks and make mistakes early on. The entrepreneurship bug was itching and she knew if she didn't make the jump, she’d regret it in the future. “I am glad I made this jump, I have no regrets, just lots of learning and I am now wiser,” she says. And adds: 

“You see, here is the thing that drove me into the fintech industry: I saw the opportunities and inequalities we experience in Africa, and I believe technology can create an enabling environment, by offering efficiency and driving growth which will ensure everyone is included and prosperity for all of us. I had to act.” 

The first thing, the Strathmore Alumni noted was that there was a lot of fragmentation in the market when it comes to financial inclusion for MSMEs. 

“Everyone is solving one piece of the puzzle - multiple infrastructure layers. I started Pezesha to solve this challenge holistically. It's not easy building a digital lending infrastructure that breaks disparities. I knew if we did this right, then working capital problems for small businesses will be solved,” Hilda says.


However, she says, it’s a journey to get there and their digital lending infrastructure has been evolving over the last five years, to match up with changing market dynamics. 

“Small business needs are growing among other factors influencing the financial system. Apart from the credit, we offer them financial education to accord them financial freedom and growth,” Hilda offers. 


To become successful in the fintech space, Hilda says that she has had to remain grounded, focused and establish a strong support network. “I am data-driven in my decision-making process and very agile in knowing when to say No, take a turn when it's not working and I embrace failure and rejection with a lot of positivity as its part of the process. Our focus as a company and my ethos as a leader have always been about challenging the status quo. So every day, I ask myself the question, am I doing this for the right reason for my business? Am I doing this for the mission that we serve? By asking myself these questions every day, I started to map out the core of what I do and why my team and I are so committed to this mission,” she continues. 


On how she balances all this, Hilda says she is highly disciplined with time. “I am grounded on values. I work on things that I believe in so everything I do or commit my time to is driven by that—it's where purpose meets passion and ambition,” Hilda who has taken up pottery in her leisure time because, ‘Molding the clay into a new bowl helps me relax when I’m feeling overwhelmed’, says. She has also taken up hobby farming, as it ‘forces me to get out of the house as I am an introvert’, and she confides she has plans to do farming large scale in the future.


She also lives by the concept of “Ikigai” a Japanese concept that means a “reason for being” and covers four overlapping elements: what you love; what the world needs; what you are good at and what you can be paid for all need to intersect. 

“Above all, taking care of myself, spiritually, mentally and physically is always top of my mind and cultivating a team and network I can trust,” Hilda says. 


On her leadership style, Hilda says she leads by example.  “I lead from the front by taking action, demonstrating what needs to be done, and keeping my team organised to make sure they’re all on the same page and contributing equally. She encourages progress over perfection, being results-oriented and taking ownership,” she says. 

The best moment in her fintech and leadership journey has been growth from both a personal and business level. “They say experience is the best teacher. Indeed, it is, I am a product of experiences. Growing Pezesha to be a profitable venture that creates jobs and growth for others is not only impactful but self-fulfilling.”


The road has not been all smooth. “To get where I am today, let it not be lost that I have also made mistakes,” she intimates. 

“My first Fintech Company, WezaTele (founded in 2011) is where we made a lot of mistakes. It was my first time running a business and the timing, the ecosystem was still maturing and there was no strong mentorship system and investments trickling in. We were a group of talented, energetic and driven people with little experience. We learnt on the job about almost every decision we made. The biggest mistake I made back then was undervaluing the company, but in hindsight, it was due to a lack of experience. Knowing what I know now, I would have done certain things differently before we sold it off in 2015,” Hilda reveals. 

The covid-19 pandemic was another tough period. “We were in the middle of fundraising and all doors got shut as soon as Covid took over. I made hard decisions. I had to let employees go, I restructured the business and cut costs significantly to survive the wave. Mentally, I was not sure I was okay. You are dealing with things you have never encountered, there is no formula for running a business in the midst of a pandemic.”

Hilda says she is very confident that Pezesha’s future looks bright as they have spent the last five years building a strong foundation. “I believe that this foundation will withstand economic challenges and scale across Pan Africa markets. We are working to reach more than one million MSMEs accessing affordable working capital in the next 5 years and creating at least five million jobs. This is our vision and our motivation as a company to do what we do every day,” she concludes.