SA's iKhokha invests $105M in small businesses

South African fintech firm iKhokha has invested more than 2 billion South African rands (US$105 million) in working capital to its small and midsized enterprise (SME) customer base, in partnership with Retail Capital, now a division of TymeBank.

The platform empowers entrepreneurs to accept both in-person and online payments.

It also provides access to working capital and business management tools, including daily sales analytics and the ability to set sales targets and track sales performance.

Over the last five years, iKhokha has expanded substantially and recently decided to be a standalone company, removing itself from Adumo group.

"In a tough South African economic climate with gloomy daily headlines, to have been able to inject R2 billion worth of working capital into the small business sector in South Africa is a really special achievement and milestone for us collectively," explained iKhokha's CEO and co-founder, Matt Putman.

He said that the fact that the company has built a sustainable funding model in this space speaks to the resilience of the small business sector in South Africa despite in the face of what are often tough trading conditions.

"This remarkable achievement underscores iKhokha's extraordinary resilience and commitment to empowering small businesses," added Miguel Da Silva, iKhokha's retail capital managing executive .

iKhokha connecting underserved entrepreneurs

The iKhokha CEO said the underserved self-employed sector of South Africa plays a vital role in stimulating the economy and helping to bridge the unemployment gap.

"Their continued growth is fundamental if we want to see our economy grow. We will continue to help entrepreneurs and SMEs to believe in better business by investing in our SME-focused financial services platform to expose more local SMEs to the digital economy," Putman continued.

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"We will continue to help entrepreneurs and SMEs to believe in better business by investing in our SME-focused financial services platform to expose more local SMEs to the digital economy," Putman concluded.

iKhokha's cash injection to South African small businesses comes on the back of MTN MoMo announcing a partnership with banking technology company JUMO to launch short-term loans in South Africa.

A new service called Qwikloan has been launched as part of the partnership. It enables MoMo users to obtain small, short-term loans on their mobile phones – ranging from R250 ($13.20) to R10,000 ($527) – either through the MTN MoMo mobile app or via unstructured supplementary service data (USSD).

MTN said Qwikloan has been available to smartphone users in South Africa since December 2023, but opening up access to include users of feature phones via USSD will enable South African entrepreneurs and informal traders to access funding for their ventures, without the need for costly data or smart devices.

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*Top image source: iKhokha

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa