Lidya

About Us

Lidya is a fintech company founded in Nigeria in 2016 by Co-Founder & CEO Tunde Kehinde and is headquartered in the US. Today, we have teams based in Portugal and the US and we are the leading digital financier of SMEs in Nigeria. 

Lidya provides a secure and flexible credit infrastructure so lenders can confidently acquire customers, originate loans, and collect repayments.

Our History

Founded in 2016 by Co-Ceo Tunde Kehinde and Co-CEO Ercin Eksin, Lidya uses a credit algorithm to allow small businesses to build a credit score and access financing to grow their business. Their platform uses over 100 data points to build a customized credit score.

Their loans have gone to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in farming, hospitality, logistics, retail, real estate, technology and health.

Lidya has built the application process through a free online account or the Lidya app. Through either portal, MSMEs can share bank account and transaction information to Lidya. MSMEs can then apply for a loan, which range from $500 to $50,000 and are decided upon in 48 hours.

Lidya raised $1.25 million in March of 2017. Accion Venture Lab led the round with participation from Newid Capital, Savannah fund and David Chan.

In May 2018, Lidya raised $6.9 million. Omidyar Network led the round, including Alitheia Capital, Bamboo Capital Partners, Tekton Ventures, Accion Venture Lab and Newid Capital. Lidya committed the new capital to expand its loans and scale, enter new markets outside of Nigeria and bring in more data scientists and engineers.

Lidya has operations in New York, Lagos, Porto, Warsaw, and Prague. As of October 2019, they had provided approximately 10,000 loans in Nigeria.

Lidya uses an online scoring system to evaluate small business loan applicants. They distribute microloans as little as $150 with turnaround time of 24 hours.

In 2017, the company participated in the MasterCard Start Path Programme and raised $1.25 million from Accion Venture Lab. In 2018, the company raised $6.9 million in a series A round. Investors included Omidyar Network, Alitheia Capital, Accion Venture Lab, Bamboo Capital Partners, Newid Capital, and Tekton Ventures.

In 2019, the company started targeting lending in Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Czech Republic, in order to expand.. 

Our Vision

Every business deserves the chance to soar, and we’re here to make that happen.

Our Mission

To unleash the full potential of the world’s most entrepreneurial businesses

Core Values

• Customer Focus
• High Standards
• Ownership
• Data + Human Intuition
• Growth
• Team + Perseverance

Our Services

Lidya aims to improve credit and finance access in frontier and emerging countries, with a focus on Nigeria. We enable small and medium businesses to open accounts online in 15 minutes, manage funds, and get the credit they need to expand their enterprises and plan their futures by combining mobile-first technology with a good customer experience and unique credit scoring algorithms.

In addition,  they’ve developed dashboards and tools to assist businesses in managing their receivables and cash flow to improve credit scores and gain access to bigger credit limits and lower rates.

Our Business Model

Lidya opreates a financial services platform that offers financing in less than 24 hours to small and medium businesses in emerging markets.

Its website offers a simple online form small business owners can use to open an account and apply for a loan. Using its own system that analyzes as many as 100 data points per applicant, Lidya can offer a decision on the loan within 72 hours.