Pledges

Pledges

Pledges was founded in 2021 by Yahaya Maikori, a former lawyer and venture builder, with the specific aim of connecting international debt capital to African SMEs through a digital lending infrastructure. The firm operates a dual-headquarters structure across the United States and Nigeria, reflecting its transatlantic deal sourcing and capital formation model. Maikori's prior experience includes founding the entertainment law firm Law Allianz and co-founding the venture studio Crevance. The firm functions as a technology-driven credit marketplace rather than a direct balance-sheet lender. Its platform underwrites small and medium enterprises across West Africa using alternative data — ranging from mobile money transaction histories to utility payments — to generate credit scores for businesses that lack traditional collateral. Pledges structures these loans and then syndicates them to impact-focused debt investors, development finance institutions, and high-net-worth individuals seeking exposure to emerging-market private credit. Core markets currently include Nigeria and Ghana, with an expressed mandate to expand across East Africa. The firm explicitly targets climate-aligned sectors, prioritizing clean energy distributors, sustainable agriculture processors, and water-and-sanitation enterprises. Pledges raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round in 2021 from notable crypto and fintech backers including Barry Silbert, Brad Stephens, and Jonathan Weiner (per TechCrunch, 2021). The team maintains a presence in San Mateo—a legacy of its crypto-native early investor base—and continues to build out its engineering and credit analytics functions across its three office locations. In September 2023, the firm was accepted into the Milken Institute's Africa Leaders Business Council, placing it alongside larger financial institutions and signaling its growing institutional relationships. The structural differentiator is Pledges' regulatory posture: rather than operating as an unregulated fintech, the firm obtained a Money Lending License from the Lagos State Government, allowing it to legally originate and enforce loans in Nigeria's largest commercial hub. This regulated status distinguishes it from most peer marketplace lenders on the continent and provides the legal certainty international debt investors require. The firm's ownership of the full credit lifecycle—from AI-driven origination to licensed enforcement—creates an architecture uncommon among early-stage African fintech lenders.