M-KOPA
“Can a smartphone become the most enforceable consumer-credit collateral and distribution channel for embedded finance across Africa's underbanked majority?”
Founded2010
HQLondon, United Kingdom
Latest roundSeries F (in progress)
IndustryFintech / Lending
The story
Founded 2010 in Kenya as a pay-as-you-go solar home systems provider, M-KOPA pivoted toward smartphone financing and broader embedded financial services for 'Every Day Earners' across sub-Saharan Africa. The company now bundles credit, digital cash loans, hospital cash insurance and device protection on top of smartphones sold via 35,000+ direct sales agents, monetizing daily mobile-money repayments. Recent strategic narrative centers on whether the $1.5B+ stock of small PAYG receivables can be securitized into a capital-markets-grade asset class.
Last 12 months
Product timeline
2010
M-KOPA founded, originally providing pay-as-you-go solar home systems in Kenya.· pivot
2020
Expanded product set from solar to smartphone financing under a daily-payments PAYG model.· pivot
2024
Surpassed 5 million customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa with $1.5B+ in credit extended.· lending
2024
Reached approximately $400M ARR.· lending
2025
Turaco partnership delivered Hospital Cash insurance to 1M+ Kenyans embedded in M-KOPA smartphones.· banking
Regulated entities
4
regulatory licences held by M-KOPA
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
2 layers disclosed in M-KOPA’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
M-Pesa / mobile money (self-operated collections)Quickteller (Interswitch bill-payment channel)
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
5 more providers across 1 layer, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.