Baobab Network Invests in Nigerian Fintech CreditChek to Boost Cross-Border Credit Access

Baobab Network, a pioneering early-stage investor and accelerator, has launched its 2025 investment cycle by investing an undisclosed amount in CreditChek, a Nigeria-base credit assessment platform that verifies the creditworthiness of African consumers.

Announcing the investment in the fintech startup, Baobab wrote,

“The founding team combines deep fintech and technical expertise. CEO Kingsley Ibe brings multiple years of fintech experience, having previously built and scaled MicroMoni. CTO Lionel Orishane contributes over a decade of experience in systems architecture and cybersecurity.

“Together, they’ve developed technology that reduces credit assessment integration times from 9 months to just 72 hours, making it faster and more affordable for financial institutions to serve immigrant customers. We’ve seen how similar solutions, such as Nova Credit have successfully addressed cross-border credit challenges in the U.S., and we believe CreditChek is poised to tackle this critical gap for Africa’s projected 147M emigrants by 2050.”

Based in Nigeria, CreditChek empowers African immigrants to access financial services by enabling banks and lenders to assess creditworthiness across borders in under 5 minutes. The platform tackles a significant challenge: 70% of Africa’s 40 million annual emigrants are excluded from basic financial services because their credit histories don’t transfer between countries.

Notably, CreditChek uses structured, user-permissioned data from multiple sources to create powerful Identity, credit and verification services that empower fintechs, banks, microfinance institutions, retail businesses and mobile money operators to build better financial products for the underserved.

By connecting with major African credit bureaus, leveraging open banking for income assessments, and integrating with government databases for identity verification, CreditChek provides a comprehensive solution to bridge this gap. The startup is on a mission to bridge the trust gap between credit-worthy consumers and credit businesses in Africa.