Ethiopian AI-powered fintech Kifiya has secured an investment of undisclosed size from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) as it looks to expand access to agricultural finance.
Founded in 2010, Kifiya uses more than 10 billion alternative data signals to build risk scores for first-time borrowers who lack a formal credit history. Its AI models help financial institutions price risk, approve borrowers, set limits, flag fraud and climate risk, and monitor their portfolios. Loans are disbursed and collected digitally through its network of agents and rural cooperatives, and the startup also links businesses and farmers with buyers and other commercial opportunities.
In agriculture, Kifiya creates a single profile for each farmer. Banks, insurers, input suppliers and buyers can all plug in to that profile, so a farmer can access credit, insurance, inputs, mechanisation, advice and buyers in one place instead of receiving a one-off loan. The company says its infrastructure has supported more than US$1 billion in credit to date. The investment from IFC was announced at the Africa Financial Summit (AFIS) in Luanda, Angola, and will be used to strengthen Kifiya’s agricultural data and risk models and extend its reach into rural communities, connecting smallholder farmers and microenterprises with finance and markets.
“Our purpose is to make Africa’s invisible economy investable,” said Munir Duri, founder and CEO of Kifiya. “Farmers and microenterprises already produce, trade and create value, but much of that activity remains unseen by formal finance.”
The investment builds on an existing partnership between the two organisations. A project launched in 2025 to digitally profile one million Ethiopian farmers has now reached more than 1.2 million, exceeding its target. The IFC also featured Kifiya as a case study in its 2026 Cracking the Credit Code report.