Pledges

Yahaya Maikori, as CEO and Co-Founder, leads the firm's investment and underwriting strategy. He is supported by an in-house credit analytics team that uses alternative data to evaluate borrower risk. Final credit committee decisions for loan syndication are handled by the senior leadership team.

Pledges sources borrowers through a combination of digital channels, partnerships with local business associations, and integrations with mobile money and utility providers across West Africa. Its underwriting model relies on alternative data—such as mobile money transaction histories—to identify creditworthy businesses that lack traditional banking relationships.

Pledges is a regulated credit marketplace, not a balance-sheet lender. It originates and underwrites loans to African SMEs using its proprietary technology, but the capital is syndicated to external investors including development finance institutions, impact funds, and accredited individuals.

The firm explicitly focuses on climate-aligned sectors including clean energy distribution, sustainable agriculture, and water-and-sanitation enterprises. Its credit scoring model is tailored to the specific cash-flow patterns of these underserved industries. Pledges avoids traditional extractive industries and purely consumptive retail lending.

Pledges holds a Money Lending License issued by the Lagos State Government in Nigeria, which permits it to legally originate and enforce loan agreements in the country's largest commercial market. This regulated status is a structural requirement for the institutional debt investors it syndicates capital on behalf of.