Kenyan fintech startup Flowt has raised $550,000 in pre-seed funding as it expands its working-capital lending business and targets a $1 million loan book by the end of 2026.
The Nairobi-based startup uses financial and transaction data to assess small businesses that can struggle to access traditional credit. Its model draws on data from sources including bank accounts, M-Pesa transactions and accounting platforms to evaluate a business’s financial position.
The funding round was backed by Delta40 Fund I, Impacc and the Argidius Foundation.
Flowt was founded by Elana Laichena and was built through Delta40 Venture Studio. The company is initially focused on climate-oriented small and growing businesses across sectors including agriculture, food processing, solar and electric mobility.
The startup’s approach is built around a simple problem: many small businesses have financial activity but lack the formal records, collateral or credit history that traditional lenders typically require.
By analysing existing transaction and accounting data, Flowt wants to make those businesses easier to assess and finance.
The company has already provided its first working-capital facility to GreenBay, a Kenyan business that refurbishes and sells pre-owned appliances and solar products. The facility was provided through Choice Microfinance Bank.
The new capital will help Flowt develop its lending infrastructure and expand access to working capital for businesses in its target sectors.
But the company’s immediate ambition goes beyond building a lending product. Flowt wants to reach a $1 million loan book by the end of 2026 while developing other products around the financial information it collects.
The company plans to generate revenue from lending alongside software subscriptions and financial intelligence products for investors and lenders.
That creates a potentially larger opportunity than lending alone. If Flowt can consistently turn fragmented financial data into reliable credit assessments, the same infrastructure could become useful to institutions looking for better ways to understand smaller businesses.
For many African small businesses, the challenge is not necessarily a lack of economic activity. It is a lack of information that lenders can confidently use to assess risk.
A business may have years of transactions through mobile money, bank accounts and accounting software while still struggling to qualify for a conventional loan.
Flowt is betting that this data can become the basis for a more efficient credit assessment process.
Its focus on climate-oriented businesses also reflects a broader financing challenge. Companies operating in areas such as clean energy, agriculture and electric mobility can require working capital to grow, but may not fit neatly into traditional lending models.
The $550,000 raise gives Flowt the capital to test whether its approach can work at greater scale. The more important test, however, will be whether it can grow its loan book while keeping credit losses under control.
Reaching $1 million in lending would demonstrate demand. Maintaining healthy repayment performance while doing so would provide stronger evidence that its data-driven underwriting model works.
For Flowt, the bigger opportunity may ultimately be the infrastructure behind the loans: turning the financial activity of underserved businesses into usable information that can unlock more capital.
That is the part of the model worth watching as the company moves beyond its first customers and toward a larger lending portfolio.
