Nigerian AI Fintech Mathesis Analytics Secures Investment to Expand Credit Decisioning Platform

Mathesis Analytics, a Nigerian fintech company, has raised strategic investment from Sewa Capital to scale its AI-powered credit decisioning engine. This platform, which has already facilitated over 8 million loans for 2 million unique Nigerian borrowers, aims to bridge a critical gap in the country's credit markets where fragmented consumer data makes accurate risk assessment challenging for lenders. The undisclosed funding will be used to enhance product development, integrate with more financial institutions, expand its lender network, and bolster its data and technology infrastructure.

The company's business model focuses on providing infrastructure to lenders rather than acting as a direct lender, allowing it to grow through institutional adoption without carrying loan-book risk. Mathesis aggregates diverse transactional and behavioral data to generate real-time creditworthiness scores, enabling financial institutions to better price risk and extend credit to previously underserved populations. This approach is particularly significant in a market where credit inclusion is often hampered by a lack of visible and verifiable information.

The investment and Mathesis's expansion come at a time of increasing regulatory scrutiny in Nigeria. The proposed Artificial Intelligence Control and Regulation Bill specifically identifies credit scoring as a high-impact area, requiring transparency, explainability, and audit trails for AI-driven decisions. Furthermore, the Central Bank of Nigeria plans to mandate AI-based compliance and real-time reporting systems for regulated institutions by 2028. Mathesis's proactive integration of explainability and audit capabilities into its engine could provide a significant competitive advantage as lenders seek to meet these evolving regulatory demands.

Mathesis operates in a competitive landscape, with established players like Optasia and emerging startups such as Regxta and Anda Africa also leveraging AI for credit scoring. However, Mathesis's focus on providing a foundational infrastructure to lenders, coupled with its substantial existing dataset from millions of loans, positions it uniquely to address the complexities of credit risk assessment in Nigeria and potentially across Africa, fostering greater financial inclusion.