Ghana’s Liquify Secures $1.5M to Close Africa’s Trade Finance Gap

Nadya Yaremenko and Alberta Asafo-Asamoah, Liquify Co-Founders

Liquify, a Ghana-based fintech startup aiming to modernize trade finance for African small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $1.5 million in an oversubscribed seed equity round, alongside additional debt financing. The new funding marks a critical step in the company’s mission to bridge Africa’s estimated $120 billion annual trade finance shortfall.

The equity round was led by early-stage investor Future Africa, with participation from Launch Africa, 54 Collective, Digital Africa, Equitable Ventures, and several angel investors. Emerald Africa, an impact-focused lender, provided a debt facility to support Liquify’s growing liquidity needs.

Founded in 2023 by Nadya Yaremenko and Alberta Asafo-Asamoah, Liquify helps African exporters convert unpaid invoices into immediate working capital by offering digital invoice financing. Since launching its beta in late 2024, the company has facilitated over 150 transactions worth more than $4 million, largely serving SME exporters in Ghana and Kenya who trade with buyers in Europe and North America.

“Liquify was built to unlock the $120 billion trade-finance gap holding back Africa’s most dynamic SMEs,” said Yaremenko, Liquify’s co-founder and CEO. “This seed round, along with the exceptional people joining our team, validates our vision. With our fully digital, AI-powered platform, exporters can turn unpaid invoices into same-day cash, while global investors access a new, uncorrelated asset class.”

Liquify’s platform automates traditionally cumbersome trade finance processes — including onboarding, Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks, and credit scoring — allowing verified export invoices to be financed within hours instead of weeks.

“Our technology removes the paperwork, delays, and prohibitive costs that have historically made it unfeasible for banks or development finance institutions to support smaller businesses,” Yaremenko explained. “The average bank process takes over 10 days and costs more than $10,000 to serve a single SME. We bring that down to a fraction of the time and cost.”

This approach has resonated with African SMEs, especially those in the agri-commodity sector, many of whom face payment cycles of 30–90 days while waiting for overseas buyers to settle invoices. Liquify’s solution allows them to access same-day cash, providing a critical liquidity lifeline.

Source: Launch Base Africa