[Startup Interview] Collins Kathuli, Co-founder and CEO, Kyanda, Kenya

Kyanda is a Kenyan dintech startup that offers Digital Financial Services to businesses, SMEs and citizens. It allows users to make cheap and fast money transfers, purchase airtime, and pay bills, among other things. The Co-founder and CEO Collins Kathuli explains.

Tell us a bit about your startup

Kyanda is a FinTech startup that offers an Omnichannel Payment Solution to serve both businesses and individuals. The services offered cut across Utility Bill Payments, Payment Collections & Disbursements to/from Mobile Money Wallets, Bank Accounts and Card Payments.

Who founded the company and what are their professional backgrounds?

Kyanda was founded by Collins Kathuli and Emmanuel Manani.

How is Kyanda financed?

Self-financed

What, in your opinion, are the dynamics shaping the fintech industry?

According to IMARC, the mobile money market as of 2021 was at Ksh. 5 trillion, we are targeting 2% of the value annually. We are 60% mark with 40% remaining to hit our goal.

In Kenya, 56% of the total population perform at least 70% of their transactions through handheld cash option due to the high charges that they will incur whilst access the same services through Online/Payments systems. This gives Kyanda a unique selling Point to offer its services to both Businesses (SMEs, Large Enterprises) & Individuals to digitize their day-to-day transactions in a cheap, fast and efficient way.

Why did you start Kyanda? What opportunities did you seek to tap into?

To build a Payment ecosystem that would be used greatly across Kenya and Africa at large. A Platform that would serve over 10 million people yearly, becoming the next Africa's Best payment ecosystem. An ecosystem that would generally impact the under banked and the unemployed.

What are the issues that Kyanda seek to address?

Financial inclusion allows individuals to send & receive payments as well as a gateway to other financial services which facilitates day-to-day living which is catering one's needs, long term goals and unexpected emergencies.

However, most users who have access to financial services tend to pay a lot more money for transaction costs making cost of transacting money, money transfer, paying of bills and utility payments to be extremely high.

Many FinTech companies & banks have considered lowering transaction costs but to users, that is still high. The best solution to such a problem is to completely cut off the costs to make it manageable which also decreases the risk of poverty.

What are the USPS of Kyanda Limited?

Our competitive advantages are:

• We have agents in the country which enables a customer to visit any nearby agent to have their funds deposited or withdrawn, avoiding the Telco's reliance.
• We have an All in One API Account for businesses to enable them to have simplified access to powerful payments and utility vending APIs.
• We have enabled cheap and easy access of our services through key offline mobile payment technologies such as SMS/USSD, NFC and others.

Who forms your clientele base?

Out of the 66.6 million registered Mobile Money Customers, 48% is made up of the Average Customer. Currently, we aim to serve approximately 500,000 Average customers among other frequent customers monthly, in our drive to process over 10,000,000 unique transactions annually. Our customers mostly consists of any gender and age who have access to a smartphone and needs to transact money.

What does Kyanda need in order to grow?

In order to achieve our strategic plan, we're seeking to raise $ 1,000,000 for our Pre-Seed Round.

What is your growth strategy?

• Product expansion, infrastructure that connects bank, mobile money, and offline data into a single API to help in decision making.
• Establish Kyanda's Entity in Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Zambia, Cameroon and Eritrea.
• Talent Acquisition: Acquisition of 25,000 Agents/Merchants on the platform through Sales Agent strategy.
• Partnership Growth to enhance the number of transactions to nearly 10 million transactions.

In which countries are you looking to establish your presence?

Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Zambia, Cameroon and Eritrea.

What are your plans for the coming 12 months?

• Close Seed round of $1,000,000.
• Include Diaspora Remittance for both Individuals and Business within Kenya and the South Africa.
• Acquire Payment Service Provider License.
• Purchase and distribute Kyanda PDQs/POS to expand the Agency Network.

www.kyanda.africa

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