South African fintech startup Omnisient has secured a $7.5 million or R133 million investment from Arise, which focuses on enhancing financial inclusion through African fintechs.
“Our mission is to create the world’s largest repository of alternative consumer data to grow financial inclusion,” said Jon Jacobson, co-founder of Omnisient.
“The investment from Arise will enable us to expand and partner with larger data providers. This will allow banks and insurers to extend financial services to millions more people globally, driving financial inclusion on an unprecedented scale.”
Launched in December 2019, Omnisient offers a privacy-preserving data collaboration platform that enables data owners to extract insights securely without compromising consumer privacy.
The platform has garnered several accolades, including ‘Winner for Social Good’ from Fast Company, ‘Most Innovative Financial Inclusion Tech of the Year’ at the Africa Bank 4.0 Summit, and recognition as a top 200 game-changing start-up by TechCrunch, as well as being named a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer.
With an estimated 1.7 billion people excluded from formal financial services globally, Omnisient’s technology supports 160 million consumer profiles and aids in credit risk assessments to help underserved individuals access loans, insurance, and other financial services.
The funding from Arise will facilitate Omnisient’s expansion into markets across Africa, the UK, the USA, and the Middle East.
“This investment aligns with our vision of using cutting edge fintechs to drive growth in Africa’s financial services sector,” said Gavin Tipper, CEO of Arise. “Omnisient’s technology will assist banks and data providers in identifying new customers, unlocking new revenue streams and will foster financial inclusion.”
This funding round (Series A) is still open. Omnisient is assessing strategic partners for the US market and the retail media space.
