Accion has announced the close of a $61.6 million fund that will invest in early-stage fintech companies meeting the needs of financially underserved people in Africa and globally.
This is the second fund from Accion Venture Lab (now rebranded to Accion Ventures) and builds on a decade-long investment strategy focused on delivering social and financial objectives through early-stage venture capital investments.
The latest fund will make up to 30 new fintech investments, including in African companies.
“With the huge uptick in mobile technologies in emerging economies, we see a significant opportunity to connect many small businesses and low-income consumers to the digital economy for the first time. Leveraging third-party capital to deliver social and financial objectives is a critical part of Accion’s strategy,” said Michael Schlein, president and CEO of Accion.
“This fund seeks to support the growth of early-stage, disruptive companies providing high-quality, affordable financial services that can help reduce poverty and create opportunity for millions of people globally,” Schlein added.
Fund backers and recent investments
The fund closed with commitments from both existing and new investors, including commercial and impact asset managers, development finance institutions, foundations, family offices and strategic financial service companies.
Partners in the fund include the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO, Proparco, ImpactAssets, Ford Foundation, MetLife Asset Management and Mastercard.
The most recent initial investments by the fund include two fintechs in Africa – human resources tech startup PaidHR in Nigeria and AI-powered conversational commerce and customer relationship management (CRM) platform Flowcart (formerly Sukhiba) in Kenya.
Accion Ventures led a seed round for PaidHR which raised $1.8 million in June 2025; while a similar round raised $1.55 million for Flowcart in August 2024.
Other recent investments include Foyer in the US and FinFra in Indonesia.
Filling funding gaps
According to the World Bank’s 2025 Global Findex, 1.3 billion people still do not have an account with a financial institution.
Accion said a $5.7 trillion annual financing gap for micro, small and medium-sized businesses represents a huge market opportunity for innovative startups ready to disrupt the traditional financial system.
Accion Ventures supports investments in innovative tech companies across Africa, South- and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the United States.
It said it focuses on scaling companies at the forefront of the latest trends in fintech, delivering financial solutions leveraging embedded finance, alternative data and generative AI (GenAI).
Since the investment strategy was established in 2012, Accion Ventures has deployed $59.4 million into 76 companies across 39 countries and had 13 exits across all geographies.
The three most recent exits were:
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Apollo Agriculture: a company providing tech-enabled inputs, financing, insurance and training to smallholder farmers in Kenya and Zambia.
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Lula: an all-digital small business lender and bank account provider for small and medium enterprises in South Africa.
Beyond deploying capital, Accion Ventures provides hands-on support to startups across the fintech lifecycle, including access to market expertise, board governance, networking to open doors in typically limited debt and equity funding environments, and strategic and operational guidance from a dedicated portfolio engagement team.
Rahil Rangwala, managing partner at Accion Ventures, said the fund will help support the growth of early-stage fintech innovators who are using new technology ranging from GenAI to satellite imagery and embedded finance, leveraging the power of mobile phones and the Internet to deliver sustainable financial returns, alongside real-world impact for underserved communities.
“Our global portfolio and local approach mean we can spot and respond to trends faster, driving local innovations on a global scale, and share learnings across geographies,” added Amee Parbhoo, managing partner at Accion Ventures.
“We aim to be one of the first institutional checks a company receives and will continue to engage early, while maintaining sufficient reserves to back our winners as they scale,” Parbhoo said.
