Nigeria’s CreditChek raises $600,000 to expand credit data infrastructure into East Africa

CreditChek, a Nigerian credit data infrastructure and financial intelligence company, has raised $600,000 to enter East Africa, betting that lenders across the region need better tools to assess borrowers and reduce default risk.

The round was led by Janngo Capital, with participation from existing investor Assembly Investors and new investors Vastly Valuable Ventures and Unipeg Capital. The company plans to launch in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, its first expansion outside Nigeria.

The move comes as African lenders struggle to find the balance between financial inclusion and credit risk management. Africa’s micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) face a funding gap estimated at over $330 billion, according to development finance estimates, while limited credit histories and fragmented financial data continue to constrain lending. 

CreditChek is positioning itself as part of the infrastructure layer designed to solve that problem. The startup provides lenders with credit intelligence, income verification, and risk-assessment tools that help determine a borrower’s ability and willingness to repay.

“We’re building the data infrastructure that allows lenders to access richer, more reliable insights,” said Kingsley Ibe, co-founder and chief executive of CreditChek. This funding allows us to scale our infrastructure and partnerships in East Africa, bringing us closer to a future where credit decisions are faster, more inclusive, and more reliable.” 

Launched in 2022 by Ibe and Lionel Orishane, CreditChek helps banks, fintechs, and microfinance institutions evaluate creditworthiness using alternative data. Its products include Credit Insight, which gives lenders access to cross-border credit history data, and Income Insight, an AI-powered tool that analyses bank statements to verify income and understand cash-flow patterns of borrowers to estimate their capacity to repay. 

The company claims that loans underwritten using its data infrastructure have recorded more than 75% lower delinquency rates compared to traditional underwriting methods.

“We are proud to lead this funding round in CreditChek, a company building the credit data infrastructure Africa needs to scale responsible lending,” said Fatoumata Bâ, Founder and Executive Chair of Janngo Capital. “By enabling lenders to make better decisions using alternative data, the company is helping expand access to financing for millions of underserved individuals and businesses while addressing Africa’s estimated $331 billion MSME financing gap.”

CreditChek said it selected Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda because of their growing digital lending ecosystems and increasing demand for consumer and business credit. 

Kenya’s licenced Digital Credit Providers (DCPs) had disbursed 7.5 million loans valued at KES133.5 billion ($1 billion) as of February 2026.  Uganda’s mobile money payments have grown at an average annual rate of 25% since the 2020/2021 financial year, while Rwanda’s financial inclusion rate reached 96% in 2024.

“Together, these markets provide an attractive combination of scale, growth potential, and opportunities for CreditChek to help lenders make better credit decisions through data-driven underwriting and cross-border credit intelligence,” Ibe said.

CreditChek said it generates revenue through a pay-as-you-go model, charging customers a fixed fee for access to its services. It said it received backing from Baobab Network and partnered with Bboxx, a data-driven super platform that connects customers with African products, under Nigeria’s Distributed Access through Renewable Energy Scale-up (DARES) project, to expand solar financing to 17 million rural households in Nigeria.

The startup said it processed more than $60 million in credit applications across one million unique customer profiles in 2025 and is already profitable in Nigeria.