We’ve rewritten the unit economics of SME lending — increasing income, cutting costs, and locking in impact. Through this journey, we support SMEs to create safe, secure and fairly paid work that moves entire families out of poverty.
Balloon has been lending to SMEs since 2019.
Globally, 2 billion people work in the informal sector. In East Africa, it’s around 75% of the population. Women and youth are disproportionately represented. Informal work is typically low paid, insecure and unsafe. The benefits of economic development are only unlocked through access to Good Jobs.
Exceptional entrepreneurs running profitable SMEs do exist, but they are un-banked and under-banked by existing financial institutions who perceive them as too risky. In Kenya and Uganda alone there is an opportunity to invest $14 billion and create/improve 5 million jobs.
Money + Support + Data = Good Jobs
We lend to thousands of replicable “boring” businesses — learning from each loan to make the next faster, smarter, and cheaper.
We digitise SME cashflows, building a unique dataset of over one million data points that powers smarter credit decisions where others can’t lend.
Every loan includes six months of business support as standard. Partnering with Vula, AI technology benchmarks SMEs, diagnoses challenges, and guides tailored, face-to-face support in real time.
We tranche our loans based on SMEs formalising all employees, creating a path to living wages for all. This embeds Good Jobs and productivity at the core of our model.
We lend to boring, brick-and-mortar businesses in proverty-reducing sectors. We publish our impact data and insights live in real time.
Against all the odds, entrepreneurs in Kenya and Uganda are creating jobs, changing lives, and moving communities out of poverty. Our job is to help them do it faster!
Two brilliant female entrepreneurs from Iganga, Uganda. We have supported them over a number of years to grow their shops and now build a cosmetics supermarket in the heart of town.
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Annual Report Published We’ve published our Annual Report and Audited Accounts for financial year...
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Ubora Coffee One of our portfolio companies in Uganda, Ubora Coffee, was recently profiled...
Interview with Josh Bicknell This month our CEO Josh Bicknell was interviewed by Palladium’s Challenge...
Global Innovation Fund Annual Report We are happy to be featured in the Global...
