“Can a Kenyan-licensed digital credit provider become the embedded working-capital rail for every African B2B marketplace and payments platform?”
Founded in 2016 as a Kenyan SME lending marketplace, Pezesha evolved into an embedded finance infrastructure provider — exposing credit scoring, KYC, loan management, and B2B working capital APIs ('Pezesha as a Service') to payment aggregators, marketplaces and supply-chain platforms across Sub-Saharan Africa. The 2022 pre-Series A funded geographic expansion beyond Kenya/Uganda, while the 2023 CBK Digital Credit Provider license formalized its position as a regulated lender powering embedded credit for partners like iPay, Jumia and Twiga Foods.
Pezesha discloses Pezesha Wallet (in-house) as its banking provider, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Pezesha does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through Pezesha Wallet (in-house).
Pezesha's lending and capital products are provided by Pezesha Africa Limited (in-house).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Pezesha's stack: Banking / BaaS (Pezesha Wallet (in-house)); Lending (Pezesha Africa Limited (in-house), Biashara Loan, Supply Chain Finance, iPay Kopesha (with iPay) and 4 others).
Pezesha was founded by Hilda Moraa and is founded in 2016, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.
Pezesha has raised ~$11M (pre-Series A) in total (latest round: Pre-Series A, 2022 ($6M equity + $5M debt)).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Pezesha 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.