CreditChek Raises $600K to Build East Africa's Credit Infrastructure

A Nigerian fintech building the data rails for responsible lending across Africa has secured fresh funding to expand eastward.

CreditChek announced a $600,000 raise to deepen its credit data infrastructure across East Africa. The round was led by Janngo Capital, Africa's largest gender-equal tech VC fund with participation from existing investor Assembly Investors and new backers Vastly Valuable Ventures and Unipeg Capital.

Founded in 2021 by Kingsley Ibe and Lionel Orishane, CreditChek aggregates credit data from banks, credit bureaus, telcos, and alternative data providers, standardizing it into a unified API that lenders can use to assess borrower risk in real time. The problem it is solving across East Africa is that lenders struggle to access reliable, interoperable credit data, making underwriting expensive and keeping credit out of reach for millions of individuals and small businesses.

The company enters this expansion from a strong position in Nigeria, where it has processed over $60 million in credit applications across one million unique profiles and already achieved profitability. It recently completed the MTN Cloud Accelerator programme and previously secured a partnership with Bboxx under the World Bank-funded DARES programme, which targets solar financing for 17 million rural Nigerian homes.

"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," said Kingsley Ibe, Co-founder and CEO.

Fatoumata Bâ, Founder and Executive Chair of Janngo Capital, pointed to the scale of the problem the company is tackling. Africa faces an estimated $331 billion MSME financing gap, and better credit data is central to closing it. "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," she said.

With the new capital, CreditChek plans to deepen integrations across key East African markets, working with banks, microfinance institutions, and fintech lenders. The longer-term ambition is to become the leading credit infrastructure layer across the continent, connecting fragmented data ecosystems and enabling cross-border credit decisions at scale.