Updates

Construction is a time-consuming and expensive venture. A lot happens from purchasing a plot of land to having house plans drawn, approved and construction done. It becomes more stressful when you have to look for all these services, one by one.

However, this hustle and bustle is a thing of the past thanks to innovators thinking out of the box and developing platforms to mitigate this stress.  One such innovation is Kuzimba Services; an online supermarket for all construction products and services.

“We are an end-to-end management digital platform that simplifies your home building process. We provide all construction services as well as different products for building and construction. We started Kuzimba in August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic as a digital platform to create opportunities for engineering graduates mainly my students as I was a lecturer at the Engineering department of Kyambogo University at that time,” Ephrance Eunice Namugenyi, the founder and managing director of Kuzimba Services said.

Kuzimba later participated in the 2021 HiPipo Women in FinTech Hackathon which it won. Since then, it has transformed into a one-stop center for all construction needs.

“We attended the 2020 Hackathon and didn’t win. We never gave up and came back for the second Hackathon in 2021. This time, we were able to be victorious. This victory gave us an open platform to launch and operate. The Hackathon not only improved our platform but also continues to give us free marketing,” Namugenyi noted.

She highlighted that Kuzimba has since integrated FinTech enabling customers to be able to place orders and make payments digitally on the Kuzimba platform.

“Kuzimba is a digital payment platform. When a customer logs on to our platform, they then register as clients after which they start choosing the items and services they want. Whatever product or service you pick is added to your cart and totaled up. The payments have been simplified and are now available on the platform thanks to an API we have integrated that supports mobile money and bank card payments. Customers can make a partial or full payment after which their orders are prepared and delivered,” Namugenyi explained, adding;

“We started as a partnership but at the start of this year, we registered a fully-fledged limited company. This is a great milestone for us as it shows that we are progressing and moving in the right direction. We have so far served over 5000 customers.”

Kuzimba Services has featured on Day 15 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Access to quality healthcare continues to be lukewarm in Uganda due to high poverty rates, limited savings, and very low insurance uptake. As a result of this, most Ugandans are always just one medical emergency and hospital admission away from financial ruin and untold disaster.

But this is changeable and one way of doing it is through creating affordable healthcare insurance products. This is the gap that Peleyta seeks to address.

Peleyta Health is a flexible, affordable, and convenient platform helping low-income earners prepare for and afford quality healthcare anywhere at all times through digital healthcare micro-savings and lending.

To get started, you download the Peleyta App or visit their website and register. Only registered members are guaranteed access to Peleyta services within the shortest time possible since their KYC and due diligence in general was earlier done during registration stage.

Registered members instantly have a savings account with Peleyta Health created; an account they keep servicing either daily, weekly, or monthly starting with as low as Shs 500. These savings attract interest at the end of the month. Savers will access their savings to clear their medical fares anytime.

“Healthcare bills should not hurt more than the sickness itself. Insurance penetration in Africa is very low under 2 per cent and in Uganda below 1 per cent. We are helping the uninsured low-income earners to prepare for and afford quality healthcare services anywhere, anytime through our digital healthcare micro-savings and lending platform. We help the uninsured save as little as UGX 500 every day dedicated to healthcare. These funds are used to offset their medical bills anywhere at our registered health facilities. In situations where the medical bills are higher than the wallet savings, we provide a microloan top-up and they are able to settle their medical bills and pay back in installments,” Douglas Smith, the Peleyta Co-Founder and COO, said.

He added: “Ever since we launched, we have had an amazing journey. So far, we have over 3,600 subscribers, and over 380 healthcare facilities we are partnering with. We are currently active in central and western Uganda. Shortly, we intend to scale to eastern Uganda.”

Peleyta has featured on Day 14 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Accessing affordable and available credit is a big obstacle to the growth of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). Many of them end up relying on loan sharks that charge exorbitant interest.

Nonetheless, innovators continue to address these obstacles with the help of Financial Technology. One way they are doing this is through making digital loans available, anytime anywhere. One such entity that is offering digital credit to last-mile customers is Kray Microfinance. Kray Microfinance is a digital financial services provider that started as a money-lending company and has since transitioned into digital microfinance for the unserved and underserved.

“We are a digital microfinance. We have a mobile APP and also accessible via USSD. Accessing our credit is straightforward. You sign up and send a request for a loan. Our officers then reach out and an assessment is done after which, our officers do a direct engagement with the customer. After this engagement, a credit score is done and a loan limit is set, after which a loan is disbursed and a customer can access the money via our digital platform. Our payments are customized to the nature of business. We have salary advance loans and repayment is monthly. We have traders that earn daily and many of these prefer a daily repayment basis. We also have those who prefer weekly payments,” says Raymond Peter Kiwanuka, founder and managing director of Kray Microfinance.

He adds: “For the twelve years we have been in business, we have given out money to over 70,000 people and currently have over 18,000 active customers on the platform. Over the years, we have disbursed over UGX 21 billion.”

According to Kiwanuka, Kray Microfinance is licensed and regulated by the Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority and also has a license from the Ministry of Trade where they are licensed as a Savings and Credit Cooperative.

“Minus our internal technical team, we also work with third-party operators like Yo Uganda who are our aggregators. We are also working with Interswitch to roll out ATM cards to further serve our customers better. We also actively work with the MNOs – MTN MoMo and Airtel Money,” he concluded.

Kray Microfinance has featured on Day 13 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as the FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

“We are happy to kick off Season Five of 40 Days 40 FinTechs. Last year, we focused on end-user experiences, and this year, we will focus on the innovativeness of the FinTechs. We are having candid discussions with FinTechs about their innovations and latest upgrades and what impact they envision these products and services and upgrades will have on their customers,” Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo Chief Executive Officer noted.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Paying and collection of rent is a huge hustle. While most tenants are willing to pay rent, they are unable to pay it timely due to multiple financial pressures and hard economic times. Delayed rent payments in turn affect landlords as they are unable to appropriately earn from their investments.

To cure this, innovators are using technology to manage rent payment and collection, making it predictable and transparent for both tenants and landlords.

One solution that was developed to mitigate these challenges is RentBeta; a platform created specifically to reduce the stress and burden that comes with paying and collecting rent.

“Our overall goal is to ensure that whether you are a tenant or a landlord, you never miss a rent payment. We created a mobile platform that allows tenants to pay their rent in micro instalments. We created this platform after realizing that the majority of people who struggle with paying rent consistently are those who don’t have a standard monthly income. We thus created something that would serve these people so that they can pay daily, weekly or bi-weekly,” Brian Tweheyo, the RentBeta Founder and CEO said.

He added: “If you are a tenant whose landlord has already signed up with RentBeta, then you don’t need to create a schedule because your landlord would have already created it. Those whose landlords are not on RentBeta create their schedule. After this, we break it down for you and for instance, if your monthly rent is UGX 600,000, then the schedule will indicate that you will pay UGX 20,000 per day until the full payment is done.”

Mr Tweheyo noted that this model guarantees that rent money is safe as it is a form of target saving that can only be used for paying rent, and not anything else.

“On the side of the landlords, we guarantee predictability of rent payments. We agree with a landlord, pay them upfront, and then collect the money from the tenants through a convenient payment schedule.”

He highlighted that currently, most of their payments are digital, through mobile money but with plans to add bank cards and direct transfers.

RentBeta has featured on Day 10 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

“We are happy to kick off Season Five of 40 Days 40 FinTechs. Last year, we focused on end-user experiences, and this year, we will focus on the innovativeness of the FinTechs. We are having candid discussions with FinTechs about their innovations and latest upgrades and what impact they envision these products and services and upgrades will have on their customers,” Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo Chief Executive Officer noted.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It is by default that every human being requires healthcare services at some point in their lives. However, many people cannot access quality healthcare services due to affordability, accessibility, and availability issues. As such, quality healthcare continues to be a preserve of the few, yet it is a need for everyone.

Nonetheless, multifaceted efforts are being undertaken to change this and make healthcare services affordable, accessible, reliable, and equitable for everyone, especially the people at the bottom of the pyramid. And, this is where My Doctor comes in.

My Doctor is a digital healthcare services platform that is transforming the traditional healthcare system like never before. Attached to a physical health centre in Nansana Municipality, Wakiso District, My Doctor is using telemedicine to provide equitable healthcare services by ensuring that people, especially those with emergencies easily reach out to professional medical services providers either through a phone call or social media, text, audio, and video.

Dr. David Mwesigwa, the Medical in-charge of My Doctor Digital Health Care Services, noted that, although a new concept, Telemedicine is changing the way healthcare services are provided and perceived as it is timely and convenient.

“The traditional health system is not failing. It continues to work.  However, we are in a technology era and as healthcare service providers, we can’t be left behind. We must move with technology and move where the world is going. We need to continuously innovate around how best we can serve our customers. We need to close the gaps that haven’t been closed by the traditional healthcare system. We are implementing telemedicine to serve customers who may not be able to visit us physically,” Dr Mwesigwa said, adding:

“From the community we are operating in, telemedicine has been warmly welcomed. We are having more clients embracing telemedicine, even those who preferred the traditional healthcare system are now switching to telemedicine because it is convenient, time-saving, and cheaper compared to physical healthcare visits, more so for mild ailments that can be diagnosed remotely. For example, some tests like HIV can be done from the comfort of someone’s home. So, when they call, we send laboratory personnel with the necessary equipment, the test is done and results are given immediately. For those, we can’t complete from a home set-up, we collect samples, take them to the laboratory, and share the results later on. For okay results, we can send them digitally but for concerning, worrying, and disturbing results, we reach out to the client and do physical counseling before we share these results.”

Dr. Mwesigwa highlighted that My Doctor has since embedded digital payments into their telemedicine proposition thus allowing the customers a chance to receive healthcare services and conveniently pay either through mobile money, bank transactions, or cash; whichever they prefer.

He revealed that in 2023 alone, over 4,600 customers reached out to My Doctor through the telemedicine approach while in the first half of 2024, at least 4,200 people have reached out via the same telemedicine service.

“In just six months of 2024, we are almost surpassing the number of customers we served in 2023. Majority of those that call seeking these services are women. This shows the high interest and belief that clients have in telemedicine.”

My Doctor Healthcare Services has featured on Day 9 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

“We are happy to kick off Season Five of 40 Days 40 FinTechs. Last year, we focused on end-user experiences, and this year, we will focus on the innovativeness of the FinTechs. We are going to have candid discussions with FinTechs about their innovations and latest upgrades and what impact they envision these products and services and upgrades will have on their customers,” Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo Chief Executive Officer noted.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

All sectors have their unique challenges. For schools, collecting school fees is a huge problem as many parents can’t pay the school fees promptly. For those in Agriculture, mainly smallholder farmers, access to quality input is a huge pain point while for small-scale traders, access to merchant stock is almost impossible without cash.

Nonetheless, the increasing roll-out and fast adoption of financial technology solutions is addressing most of these issues with many unserved and underserved people now able to access these much-needed services and products on credit.

One of the financial technology start-ups that have come to address issues faced by farmers, parents, and small-scale traders is PesaJet.

“We are a financial technology solution targeting the underserved communities. These are communities that are unable to access loans from mainstream banking solutions. We focus on three main themes. Education where we are giving school fees to school-going children. Merchant stock for small and medium-scale businesses looking for stock. We also serve smallholder farmers who we give small Agriculture loans,” Angella Kansemiire, the PesaJet Product Manager said.

She added: “For Education, we onboard schools and [help willing parents to] pay the school fees directly to the schools. The parents then pay us back in installments. So far, we have onboarded over 50 schools and serving about 500 happy parents and pupils. Our proposition for Agriculture involves providing farmers with goods and services on credit. When we are offering the funds, we offer them through the suppliers we work with and the suppliers deliver these to the farmers. The farmers then pay back [in installments]. We have so far onboarded around 2,000 farmers and some 500 have accessed the service. Lastly, for small-scale traders, we help them get stock for their businesses. We already have five wholesalers who we have business agreements with; so, when a trader makes an order, we pay the wholesaler and the goods are delivered. The trader then pays us.”

Kansemiire noted that PesaJet services are accessible through a mobile APP downloadable on Android devices for now. She highlighted that after registration, a customer submits basic KYC (Know Your Customer) and two references after which one is able s/he is eligible to apply for between UGX 50,000 and Shs 200,000, which goes on growing depending on someone’s repayment behavior and credit history that is built automatically depending on one’s usage of the APP.

PesaJet has featured on Day 8 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

“We are happy to kick off Season Five of 40 Days 40 FinTechs. Last year, we focused on end-user experiences, and this year, we will focus on the innovativeness of the FinTechs. We are going to have candid discussions with FinTechs about their innovations and latest upgrades and what impact they envision these products and services and upgrades will have on their customers,” Innocent Kawooya, the HiPipo Chief Executive Officer noted.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

One of the main pain points faced by small businesses in Uganda is the high cost of rent for stalls and business space. The cheap stalls are not marketable while the marketable stalls are out of reach for small businesses. Nonetheless, technology is solving some of these issues through democratizing advertising and general access to market information.

Among the platforms that are spearheading this is Merchandise Uganda; a free online marketplace where sellers and buyers meet and transact. When you have a business or products to sell, you just visit the Merchandise Uganda platform and open a shop. A seller/trader is required to provide some KYC (Know Your Customer) in form of trader name or business name, location, contact details, good photos of products, and videos of how the products work (if need be).

When someone wants a product, they go to the website or download the Merchandise Uganda app and search for the product they want. Then people with such a product will be listed and the client can contact them directly.

They also have partnerships with courier companies. All suppliers are assigned to these logistics companies. So, when the client makes an order, the delivery company is notified to pick the product and deliver it

Suzan Awori, the General Manager of Merchandise Uganda notes that since they launched in 2019, they have on-boarded tens of clients, created hundreds of jobs, and served thousands of customers.

“We have been in business for more than five years and over the years have on boarded more than 10,000 businesses and created as many jobs along the way. These businesses serve more than one million customers. We are a general business platform and some of our top sectors include automotive, devices, agriculture and furniture,” Awori said, adding:

“We have since upgraded our platform and added a payment system that enables customers to shop and pay digitally. This makes it easy for customers to make payments and also for the sellers to easily and safely receive their money.” 

Merchandise Uganda appeared on Day 7 of the HiPipo 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative season five.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Uganda is an agro based economy and thus efforts to modernize and transform agriculture are always well received. With more than 60 per cent of Uganda’s work force involved in agriculture, it is always refreshing to engage with stakeholders that using technology to the change the fortunes of this industry.

In Eastern Uganda, large and smallholder farmers now have access to quality inputs and market information thanks to Essymart Africa.

Essymart Africa is an agricultural technology enterprise that is focused on providing smallholder farmers with access to quality farm inputs at competitive prices such as stress tolerant seeds, organic fertilizers and pesticides, input financing to ease farmers cash flow, training in regenerative farming techniques, technology-based services and communication, post-harvest services to reduce spoilage, and access to premium markets for better crop income.

Essymart leverages USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) technology to deliver information to farmers via their cell phones. Farmers can dial a USSD code on their cell phone to access farm inputs, information on the weather, local market prices, farming practices, water management techniques and agricultural subsidy programs. In addition, it also provides personalized advice to farmers based on their location and type of farm. Farmers can also ask questions and receive answers from agricultural experts via the service.

“Currently, we are serving hundreds of farmers in Eastern Uganda districts of Mayuge, Iganga, Luuka and Kaliro but intend to expand our services to all over the country. Majority of these farmers are smallholder women farmers. By using Web Application, common SMS technologies and telephone calls, we are achieving positive results, improving access to information, increasing productivity and farm incomes, and helping to reduce poverty among small-scale farmers in Eastern Uganda,” Mr Elvis Kadhama, the co-founder and CEO of Essymart said, adding;

“We are disrupting Africa’s agricultural sector using the Fourth generation revolution technologies such as AI to end hunger and poverty among marginalized smallholder farming communities in the African rural areas. We endeavor to help farmers become more productive and efficient by analyzing large amounts of data about weather patterns, soil conditions, pest and disease detection, fertilizer application, crop yields, fertilizer use, and other factors.”

Mr Kadhama noted that they have integrated financial technology in the platform to enable farmers, input dealers and other platform users to be able to seamlessly make and receive payments through mobile money and bank transactions. The platform also facilitates access to farm input on credit thus saving farmers from endless stress.

“We are working with 20 agents. We have so far impacted over 4000 farmers, majority of them being women smallholder farmers dealing in maize, beans and vegetables,” he said.  

Essymart Africa was hosted on Day 6 of the HiPipo 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative season five.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.