KENYA – Financial technology firms M-Kopa and Pula Advisors are set to receive grants totalling $1.3 million from a fund backed by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) to conduct market research on women access to digital financial services.

Pula, which offers insurance and digital products to help small-scale farmers, will receive US$1 million while mobile phone-based solar kit reseller M-Kopa will get US$300,000.

Pula was founded by Rose Goslinga and Thomas Njeru in 2015.

The research by the two companies will seek to find ways of enhancing women’s access to digital financial services including loans and microinsurance.

The grants will be disbursed through the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility, a blended finance vehicle supported by AfDB.

“This grant funding will be used to leverage technology to develop innovative and responsive loan and insurance products that can spur productivity and inclusion, especially for our women smallholder farmers and traders,” Sheila Okiro, the bank’s co-ordinator for ADFI said in a statement.

“This grant funding will be used to leverage technology to develop innovative and responsive loan and insurance products that can spur productivity and inclusion, especially for our women smallholder farmers and traders”

Sheila Okiro – ADFI Coordinator

The three-year project will have three phases –product development, piloting, and scaling. The outcomes are expected to benefit 360,000 farmers, half of them women, as well as boost farm yields by up to 30 percent.

Pula Advisors, which works with governments and providers of seed, fertiliser, and loans to bundle insurance with farm input products, will conduct the research in Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia.

The study will focus on social, cultural, and economic factors that impact women farmers’ access to micro-insurance.

Early this year, Pula closed a Series A investment of US$6 million funding round led by Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, TLcom Capital, with participation from non-profit Women’s World Banking. 

M-Kopa is an African connected asset financing platform that provides underbanked customers in Africa to essential products including solar lighting, televisions, fridges, smartphones & financial services.

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