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Kenyan FinTech Flowt has reached the first close of its pre-Seed round with backing from impact investor Impacc, alongside Delta40 Venture Studio, to accelerate the growth of its AI-powered financing platform for climate-smart small businesses across Africa. It has also secured grant funding from Argidius Foundation.
The startup said the investment will support its continued growth, expand its loan book and strengthen its technology as it works to improve access to working capital for underserved businesses.
The investment marks Flowt’s first institutional backing from the two investors. According to Impacc founder Till Wahnbaeck, the firm chose to back the startup despite it being at a pre-revenue stage and operating outside its typical investment focus.
“We have a deal (again)! I’m really happy that Flowt have accepted us as their investor,” he wrote on LinkedIn. As part of the deal, Impacc will also provide Flowt with a loan to help secure its first customers while creating opportunities to connect the startup with companies across its portfolio.
Founded by Elana Laichena and Handel Dan Owour, Flowt is building an AI-native FinTech platform that unlocks working capital financing for climate-smart small businesses using verified financial data. The company was incubated within the Delta40 Venture Studio from the idea stage through to the launch of its minimum viable product.
The startup aims to solve Africa’s persistent SME financing challenge by helping businesses generate lender-ready financial information. Its platform integrates with accounting software to produce financial health metrics, while its due diligence tools analyse banking and mobile money transactions to help lenders assess borrowers more efficiently. Over time, the company plans to launch an AI-powered accounting platform that automatically produces IFRS-aligned financial statements for small businesses.
Founder and CEO Elana Laichena is a second-time entrepreneur who previously built Acacia Innovations, a Kenyan business converting sugarcane waste into clean cooking fuel and selling to schools on three-to-four-month credit terms. Unable to bridge that gap through a bank, she built Flowt to solve the problem she had personally faced. CTO Handel Dan Owour previously built data infrastructure at SunCulture and Twiga Foods.
“Raising capital in Africa can be like running the gauntlet, but I’m so glad to have reached the finish line with the first close of our pre-seed round, with amazing investors Impacc, Delta40 Venture Studio, and Argidius Foundation! Each of these investors brings first hand experience with the challenge & opportunity of working capital financing for businesses which don’t fit traditional credit models,” Laichena mentioned in a LinkedIn post.
According to Delta40, Flowt has already tested its platform with more than 15 potential borrowers and identified a pre-qualified pipeline representing between $1 million and $2 million in loan demand. The pilot programme focuses on businesses operating in green manufacturing, climate-smart agricultural processing, distributed renewable energy and clean cooking.
“Africa’s climate SMEs are generating real revenues, creating jobs, and delivering measurable climate impact. They are not unbankable. They are underdocumented. Flowt is changing that,” said Lyndsay Holley-Handler, Managing Partner, Delta40.
Flowt says its financing model relies on verified financial performance rather than traditional asset collateral, helping expand access to finance for businesses, including women-led enterprises that are often overlooked by conventional lenders.
“Now onto deploying our first loans and launching world-class tech to help African climate-smart small businesses grow and achieve more impact. We’ll be doing a second close + raising debt & (repayable) grants to grow our loan book,” added Laichena.
Flowt aims to grow its loan book up to $1 million by the end of 2026 and is seeking capital to achieve this target.
Delta4 mentions that it will continue to support Flowt’s growth by opening doors to lenders and co-investors across its network, helping the team raise its next round, and providing fractional operational and CFO support as the business scales.
