Why We Invested in Flowt

Delta40 | Portfolio Company Announcement

We are thrilled to announce our investment in Flowt, an AI-native fintech which unlocks working capital financing for African climate-smart small businesses, powered by verified financial data. Flowt was founded by Elana Laichena, a second-time founder with an exit, and the immediate former Managing Director - Kenya at Delta40. Flowt was built within the Delta40 Venture Studio from idea stage through to MVP launch, and this investment supports its continued growth.

TAM

Africa's $330 billion SME financing gap is not, at its root, a capital problem; it’s an information problem. More than 1,000 investors across the continent carry active mandates to deploy capital to SMEs and routinely miss their own targets. The reason is structural: lenders need trustworthy, standardized financial data to underwrite deals, and the vast majority of African SMEs cannot produce it. Lenders spend 6 to 9 months in due diligence , with human capital costs that make loan tickets under $200,000 economically unviable. Africa's climate finance is currently meeting only 23% of the continent's actual investment needs, creating a huge opportunity for innovative tech-enabled financing solutions.

The Technology

Flowt operates at the union of working capital financing and financial intelligence. Its live Financial Health Check Tool plugs into platforms like QuickBooks, Zoho, and Odoo, auto-generating 20+ financial metrics with real-time guidance on improving financing readiness. Flowt’s financial DD tool ingests bank & M-pesa statements auto-categorizes transactions, and produces a cash-based profit & loss statement and key financial metrics, while checking for risk signals.  By the end of 2026,  Flowt will launch a full AI-Powered Accounting tool ingests M-Pesa statements, bank data, receipts, and invoice photos to produce IFRS-aligned profit and loss, balance sheet, and cash flow statements, designed for non-accountants.. ed.

What makes this model defensible over time is the data flywheel. Every SME that uses Flowt's bookkeeping tool generates financial data that sharpens the credit model. Every loan underwritten adds to a proprietary corpus of African SME financial behaviour that no incumbent lender has access to.

The Team

Elana Laichena brings 14 years as both an entrepreneur and investor across Sub-Saharan Africa. Her previous venture, Acacia Innovations, converted sugarcane waste into clean cooking briquettes and was acquired by Mashariki Utilities, a track record that demonstrates the ability to build commercially in resource-constrained environments and attract strategic acquirers. Her time at Open Capital Advisors advising businesses on growth strategy and capital structuring, and her tenure as Delta40's MD for Kenya, gave her direct access to the lender and co-investor relationships that now form Flowt's earliest pipeline. 

Handel Dan Owour, CTO, built the data pipelines and business intelligence infrastructure for two of East Africa's most data-intensive growth companies, SunCulture and Twiga Foods. He trained as an economist and started his career at Barclays Bank, bringing direct financial services experience to the product he is now building.

Traction and Impact

Flowt's MVP is live at www.flowt.africa. The team has completed user tests with 15+ potential borrowers, and identified a pre-qualified pipeline with an aggregate loan demand of $1 to $2 million. Flowt has also secured equity & debt from Impacc and  grant funding from Argidius Foundation. The pilot cohort spans green manufacturing, climate-smart agri-processing, distributed renewable energy, and clean cooking. Each financed business delivers measurable climate outcomes. Flowt's model, based on verified financial performance rather than asset collateral, also structurally expands access for women-led businesses that traditional lenders routinely turn away.

What Comes Next

Flowt is raising its pre-seed round plus raising debt and (repayable) grants to grow its loanbook across Kenya's climate economy. The longer-term vision is clear: a proprietary financial data layer covering African climate SMEs at scale, making them financeable by any lender on the continent.

Delta40 Venture Studio

At Delta40, we are uniquely positioned to build companies from within the studio, identifying gaps in the market across our sectors and assembling the team, infrastructure, and early support to turn an idea into a working business. Flowt came out of exactly this process: built from the idea stage onward, with operational infrastructure, shared services, and the founding team's time invested before a single line of product code was written.

We will continue to support Flowt’s growth by opening doors to lenders and co-investors across our network, helping the team raise its next round, and providing fractional operational and CFO support as the business scales.

"Africa's climate SMEs are generating real revenues, creating jobs, and delivering measurable climate impact. They are not unbankable. They are underdocumented. Flowt is changing that." - Lyndsay Holley-Handler, Managing Partner, Delta40

Get Involved

• Equity Investors: Flowt is raising its pre-seed round, after reaching first close with Delta40 & Impacc. Reach out to Elana or the Delta40 team to learn more about participating.

• Lenders & grantmakers: Flowt aims to grow its loan book up to $1M by the end of 2026 and is looking for capital to achieve this target. Contact elana@flowt.africa to learn more.

• Climate SMEs: If you run a climate-positive business in Kenya and need working capital, visit flowt.africa to get prequalified for a loan.

Welcome to the Delta40 portfolio, Elana and Handel