Purpose-built for Africa's mid-size finance gap
Every decision we make is grounded in a clear mission, a bold vision, and a focused geographic bet on where we can have the greatest impact.
Our mission
Unlocking working capital for small & mid-size businesses in emerging markets.
Every tool we build, every partnership we form, serves this single outcome.
Our vision
Every viable small & mid-size business in emerging markets can access affordable working capital to grow and create more impact.
A continent where creditworthiness is proven by data, not who you know or how well you talk.
Our focus
Sub-Saharan Africa, starting in Kenya.
Where the funding gap for SGBs is widest and the opportunity to build transformational financial infrastructure is greatest.
Leadership Team
Our experienced leadership brings together deep expertise in entrepreneurship, finance, technology, and AI/ML engineering. With a combined 40+ years of experience across venture building, capital markets, and software development at leading African companies, we're uniquely positioned to drive innovation.
Elana Laichena
Co-Founder & CEOFormer Managing Director of Delta40 (VC fund & venture studio), founder with an exit (Acacia Innovations), and development finance consultant (Open Capital). 14+ years of experience in the climate sector (11 in Africa) including venture building, business development, and financial analysis.
Mike Thuita
CTOTechpreneur and repeat founder whose work spans financial technology, artificial intelligence and national digital infrastructure. Led the delivery of Kenya's National Carbon Registry, bringing together government ministries and international partners. Previously co-founded MulaStack as CTO, and founded Thuita.com, helping businesses put AI to work through training and product development. At Flowt, he leads technology strategy and engineering to help businesses across Africa become finance ready.
Evans Kibet
Senior AI/ML EngineerAI/ML engineer and full-stack developer with 8+ years building intelligent systems at scale. Brings CTO-level leadership from ProfitLeap, with senior engineering roles at Safaricom, SunCulture, and Onfon Media. At Flowt, he leads the AI architecture that turns raw financial data into investor-grade intelligence.
How Flowt began
Flowt was born out of a problem our founder, Elana Laichena, lived firsthand, both as an entrepreneur and as an investor across Africa.
The Flowt team
Building the business loans marketplace for Africa
The “$50K is too small” problem never quite made sense to me until I saw the math from the other side of the table.
A working-capital crunch, lived firsthand
In 2016, Elana founded Acacia Innovations, a social enterprise in Western Kenya that manufactures an alternative to firewood from sugarcane waste, supplying schools, institutions, and industries. Schools were a natural fit, but they operate on 90–120 day credit cycles, receiving income only once a term. Every new client meant a bigger working capital crunch. Banks in Kenya rarely lend to small businesses, and the working capital products that did exist came at 36–100%+ APR. Impact investors with affordable rates called a $50,000 loan "too small." The ones who eventually showed interest spent 12+ months in due diligence.
Why "$50K is too small" finally made sense
The "$50K is too small" problem never quite made sense to Elana, until she moved into management consulting at Open Capital and began working with debt funds. After running the numbers, a $50K loan simply couldn't be profitable when lenders were spending 6–12 months of expensive human time underwriting each deal.
The same wall, across every sector
Then, as Managing Director, Kenya at Delta40 (a VC fund and venture studio), Elana saw that working capital wasn't a problem unique to her business. Every company in Delta40's portfolio, across high-impact sectors like agri-food, sustainable transport, and distributed renewable energy, was bumping against the same wall. This led to purchase orders being delayed or declined, or equity meant for growth infrastructure was being burned just to keep the sales cycle alive.
Flowt exists to change that.
By harnessing the AI revolution, Flowt compresses due diligence timelines from months to days, making mid-sized loans economically viable without sacrificing rigour. Our proprietary ML model and data insights let us derisk loans without burdening entrepreneurs. The result is affordable, fast working capital for small and mid-size businesses, so they can do what they set out to do: grow, and create real impact.
Get in touch
Questions, partnerships, or press enquiries - we would love to hear from you.