Ugandan tech-startup wins Shs360m investment

Members of the Ugandan team, Killer Analytics pose for a photo. COURTESY POTO.

What you need to know:

  • The Transform Africa Summit 2017 concluded on Friday
  • One of the key points of discussions was how to ensure that technology does not create a wide divide but instead work towards enhancing finding solutions that are inclusive

KIGALI, RWANDA – A Ugandan solution to solving one of the barriers to small businesses, credit access, has been able to raise $100,000 (Shs360m) capital from a group of investors.

During a session called “Face the Gorillas” at the Transform Africa Summit 2017 in Kigali, Rwanda, the Ugandan team, Killer Analytics, presented an application called Smart Credit.

They had to pitch to investors to access a total investment of $200,000 (Shs720m).

“Smart Credit is a business intelligent engine that processes SME transactional data to individualized credit data and financial statements.

It started with the aim of helping small businesses access credit,” explains Mr. Peter Muzoora, the Project Manager at Smart Business Intelligence told Daily Monitor on the side-lines of the summit at the Kigali Convention Centre.

In pitching their solution, Muzoora explains that they observed access to credit is one of the biggest challenges for small businesses that make up 90 per cent of the entire private sector.

“We looked at the data from the small business survey and we realized that the vast majority of businesses accessing credit are primarily from money lenders and mobile money.

These avenues do not adequately help SME’s to thrive. So we asked ourselves what is the better way for SME’s to access credit?” he explained.

It started off as a hakathon in Uganda but also taking place in other African countries. In Ugandan there were 16 other teams.

They then faced off against 6 other African countries and were placed second but that was good enough to steer them to face the investors.

The criteria for the contest in 2017 was being able to provide an ICT solution that can solve a problem for SME’s.

Each time had 5 minutes to make a pitch to investors. They then moved on enter negotiations with investors until a deal with finally.
Notably, the startup needed to prove that it was beyond just an idea.

“It was through some intense negotiations between us and the investors also known as the gorrilas.

We had to test the relevance of our solution. We had to show that it is scalable and has the potential to impact a vast number of people with relatively low input and I believe they believe in our vision,” Muzoora adds.

In 2015, Smart Business Intelligence developed an accounting system that formalizes payments using mobile money. They were able to secure a $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop this application. The team of four is led by Mr. Fred Otim.

“It primarily meant to go towards customer acquisition drives. It is also going to go towards marketing the product specifically behavioural change. We want to change the mind set of SME’s.

We know that they are already recording basic transactions but we want them to adopt this system and mobile payments which is a core part of our solution,” he adds.

The Transform Africa Summit 2017 concluded on Friday. One of the key points of discussions was how to ensure that technology does not create a wide divide but instead work towards enhancing finding solutions that are inclusive.