Nigerian fintech company Lidya is wrapping up its services in Poland and the Czech Republic after three years of operation in Eastern Europe.
The decision follows the company’s successful $8.3 million pre-Series B funding in 2021, aimed at strengthening its presence in Nigeria, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Lidya is refocusing on its newly introduced credit assessment and loan recovery service, Lydia Collect, concentrating specifically on the Nigerian market.
Lydia Collect serves as a final measure, allowing connected lenders to directly debit accounts of borrowers who defaulted on loans in other banks through the GSI system.
Founded in 2016 by Tunde Kehinde and Ercin Eksin, Lidya initially aimed to assist small and medium-sized businesses in areas like opening accounts, saving money, building credit profiles, and securing loans for expansion.
Kehinde, also the co-founder of Jumia Nigeria, and Eksin, former CEO of Jumia Nigeria and COO of Jumia Africa, played key roles in Lidya’s establishment.
Explaining the shift, Lidya’s CEO Tunde Kehinde highlighted Nigeria’s tech-savvy lending ecosystem as the perfect ground for their data-driven decision-making solutions.
Lidya, known for streamlining the credit assessment process for African SMEs, secured $6.9 million in Series A funding in 2018, a year after obtaining a $1.25 million seed funding.
Despite announcing lending operations in the Czech Republic and Poland in October 2019, Lidya’s presence in Eastern Europe didn’t commence until March and April 2020.
Notably, before launching Lidya, co-founders Kehinde and Eksin established a logistics company, Africa Courier Express (ACE.ng), providing last-mile e-commerce delivery services.
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