“Can a South African SME lender become the financial OS — funding plus banking plus embedded credit — for the country's underbanked small businesses?”
Founded 2014 as Lulalend, a digital lender originating short-term working capital loans to South African SMEs underserved by traditional banks. After the $35M Series B in 2023, the company rebranded to Lula and signaled a strategic shift from pure lender to a full SME financial platform — adding a banking product, a B2B BNPL facility (Lulapay) and embedded credit distributed through partners like Peach Payments. The bet is that owning the SME's funding relationship gives Lula the right to own their banking and payments stack too.
Lulalend processes payments through Peach Payments (distribution partner).
Lulalend's lending and capital products are provided by Lula Lend (Pty) Ltd (in-house).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Lulalend's stack: Payments / PSP (Peach Payments (distribution partner)); Lending (Lula Lend (Pty) Ltd (in-house), Cash Flow Facility (revolving working capital up to R5M), Fixed-Term Funding (3/6/9/12-month term loans), Lulapay (B2B Buy Now Pay Later / Trade Capital, up to 6 months) and 7 others).
Lulalend was founded by Trevor Gosling and Neil Welman and is founded in 2014, headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa.
Lulalend has raised $41.5M+ disclosed in total (latest round: Series B, 2023).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Lulalend and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.