The winner of the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV spring 2024 partnership program have been announced, during the Lighthouse award ceremony at Latitude59 in Tallinn.

Leja, a women-led fintech company that is dedicated to unlocking growth opportunities for African MSMEs, is announced the program winner of Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV spring 2024, Mastercard’s partnership program to find and scale tomorrow’s impact unicorns.

As winner, Leja will now receive ongoing support from Mastercard and will pitch for Start Path, Mastercard’s global start-up engagement program.

Mastercard Ligthouse MASSIV
Leja enables African MSMEs to centralize all their business transactions in one place and access trade finance solutions. Leja receives the award for their global growth potential. The team was highly accountable and progressed well in the program on both networking opportunities and impact measurement.

“It is such a beautiful recognition for Leja to be awarded as the Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV program. It was a great experience for us. Building connection with advisors, potential partners and fellow startups was unvaluable. Behind Leja you have an amazing and passionate team dedicated to changing the narrative around African microbusinesses and making financial services more accessible and affordable for everyone. Receiving this award means a lot for all of us, as it means that we are doing something right, and we are very grateful for that”.

– Morgane Kablan, co-founder of Leja.

Leja is also awarded the Impact Potential Award, for creating a real, positive, and tangible impact on the world in line with Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV’s vision of helping 1 billion people live more prosperous and secure lives by 2025.

“It’s inspiring to witness the fruition of more impact scaleups, and it is crucial to celebrate and support their efforts. This year, at the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda, we have worked with many dedicated startups, supporting them in working with impact measurement and management tailored to their concrete solutions. One of these startups, and the winner of the overall MASSIV Programme and this year’s Impact Potential Award, is Leja. Leja provides a finance management app to micro-businesses in Africa, which supports them in accessing affordable services from large financial institutions. With three million US dollars worth of loans already distributed to micro businesses because of Leja’s work, we look forward to seeing the lives of even more business owners and families being changed by Leja. At UNDP, we are pleased to be able once more to award and support companies like Leja who is addressing some of the roadblocks we are facing in reaching the ambitious targets of the 2030 Agenda,” says Stine Kirstein Junge, Private Sector Advisor at UNDP Nordic Office

Over three months, five companies have participated in the MASSIV program where they have attended workshops and received support from experts and advisors from amongst others Swedbank, UNDP, VNTRS and Synch. MASSIV’s Spring class also included FUZED, a finalist that blends gaming with physical activity and exercise, helping young gamers build healthier habits, PANTER a finalist offering a digital platform for managing reusable packaging in the takeaway sector for businesses selling food and beverages. Vistalworks a startup that has created data intelligence products to help law enforcement agencies, online marketplaces, and regulated businesses keep ahead of illegal trade, and finally Carbon Centrum a company that is developing a platform to help people lower CO2 emissions, create Carbon IDs and get paid via NetZero green corps.

“Leja is a highly impactful company touching upon both social impact and sustainability. We are proud to have worked on the scaling journey of five impact tech start-ups this spring program. With Mastercard Lighthouse MASSIV we have the vision of helping one billion people live more prosperous and secure lives by 2025. It is important to support start-ups impacting both people and planet and contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals”, says Mats Taraldsson, Head of Fintech and Impact Tech Engagement at Mastercard Nordics and Baltics

Lighthouse MASSIV is free and focused primarily on helping impact tech companies scale globally through partnerships. To date, more than 100+ partnership discussion initiated through the program by 48 participating startups and organizations.Do you know a Nordic or Baltic impact tech company interested to join our 2024 Fall program?