Finance is the fuel that propels business and in its absence, start-ups with wonderful ideals risk failure or stagnation.
Understanding the critical importance of funding to entrepreneurs, Adesina Adewunmi, Shina Arogundade, and Oluwatosin Ayodele, co-founders of Trade Lenda were inspired to establish Trade Lenda to address the issue of finance for small businesses in emerging economies.
Trade Lenda is a digital financial service solution that supports small businesses easily, quickly access credits with zero collateral.
“Through our data-driven credit scoring platform, Trade Lenda leverages on data to evaluate character and capacity to bridge access to quick and efficient finance gaps for millions of small retailers and suppliers across emerging markets,” says Adeshina who is also the founder of One Kiosk Africa.
Since its establishment in 2021, Trade Lenda has supported more than 500 small businesses in Africa’s biggest economy with over $800,000 (N332.8million)
“We have seen how hard it is to access credit opportunities and the significant impact timely working capital brings to the table. Sometimes the different business survival and death of a small business is quick timely access to working capital at an average of $1,000,” he says.
“We have come together to build the next unicorn while contributing meaningfully towards eradicating poverty, creating jobs and driving innovation through the small businesses we support with our solutions,” he states.
“We kicked off with a micro-test through a partnership where we facilitated over $500,000 in disbursement to support trade businesses during the heights of the pandemic. Later in May 2021, we decided to extend our solution to a close beta with over $300,000 disbursed to about 500 small businesses and same fully repaid.”
He says the business has so far achieved 100 percent success in repayments while noting that it has recently signed six strategic partnerships that have given them a subscribed list of over 150,000 active retailers and suppliers to support with finance.
He explains that the business is focused on small businesses especially those within the retail and supply value chain.”Our insights of the market and the opportunity can however be traced to our deep insights working with retailers and suppliers to give them market access.”
“We saw the opportunity and decided to be the bridge towards unlocking the dividends of access to finance to secure trade for retailers and suppliers across emerging markets,” he says.
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On how the business was able to raise its start-up capital, the young entrepreneur says Trade Lenda has cycled above $250,000 in debt through angel financing and equity investment.
He adds that each co-founder equally brought their contributions to kick-start the business.
He adds that Trade Lenda makes its profit from charging a fee of five percent 30 days interest on credits disburses to small businesses.
Since then, the business has attracted local and international investors. The young entrepreneur is committed to growing the business further by making an inroad into emerging economies, especially in Africa.
Speaking on some of the challenges confronting the business, the young entrepreneur says the turnaround time to get the full operational license is a big challenge.
“We have still working to get our full operational license for months now when it took us only three days to get it registered in the US.”
On advice to other young entrepreneurs, he says, “Consistency and patience. We live in a world where everyone wants to shine without paying the price required to shine. Consistency always pays off at the end of the day and patience is a rare virtue.”
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