The 21-year-old is making waves in fintech

As a child, Collins Kathuli dreamed of becoming a news anchor and would use her mother’s phone to record videos of herself “presenting news”.

Little did he know that all this was a build-up to a future career in technology.

“I remember recording videos with my mom’s phone and editing them on our home computer,” he recalls.

“In the process of learning how to edit videos, I started researching how to upload them to a domain.”

This prompted Kathuli to build his first website to upload his video content, which further fueled his interest in Information Technology (IT).

In high school, he was also interested in computer studies, which nurtured his talent in computer programming.

The 21-year-old, who is currently studying software engineering at KCA University, is the founder and CEO of Kyanda Africa, a fintech venture.

He is the mastermind behind Kyanda Africa, a money transfer app. The mobile wallet solution allows users to send and receive money, pay bills and receive payments. It is available in Kenya and South Africa.

Airtime sales platform

The platform aims to relieve users from high transaction costs incurred while accessing important financial services.

Kathuli is mostly self-taught and says that Google and YouTube came in handy when setting up the mobile application.

However, he started early, and by the time he was in high school he had already mapped out his vision.

“I participated in school competitions and participated in science congresses where I submitted technical projects. I did my first project while I was in form three, I stayed on the project until I finished high school in November 2019, he says.

The project was about a sales platform for airtime, and he developed it with some friends in three months.

When he started Kyanda in February 2020, the young CEO wanted to help people close to him, only to realize it had the potential to grow.

Before clearing high school, Kathuli and his partners had saved part of their pocket money for two years, collecting about Sh15,000, which they used as start-up capital.

He promoted the app on his social media and by the end of the launch day, 50 users had downloaded it.

Kathuli visited South Africa for the first time in November 2021 through the Kenya South Africa Chamber of Commerce, where he saw an opportunity to scale up.

“South Africa is a card-based country, it was more of an exhibition and they saw my payment solutions as something that could work perfectly there. We did our research and launched in South Africa in July this year.”

Payment systems

Kyanda’s customer base has since grown to cross the 5 million mark for the number of transactions.

Despite the growing market base, Kyanda like any other business has had its share of challenges, from marketing.

“When we started, marketing was very difficult for us, and also finding the capital to keep the platform going. The regulations in the fintech area were also tough.”

With an increasing number of people going cashless, many payment systems are at risk of cyber attacks, Kathuli notes that they are adequately prepared.

Kathuli says the company has grown organically, but is open to interested investors. Kenya’s payments ecosystem has grown over the years and has seen the entry of many fintech startups.

Multinational companies such as the payment giant Visa are also interested in this market share and a few months ago created a regional innovation studio to map the future of payments.

Business growth

Kathuli advises budding tech-preneurs to start early, network and stay committed to their vision.

“For other young people, there are a lot of opportunities out there,” he says.

“I would advise you to start now while you are alive, find your passion and act on it today. Networking is also important and has worked for me.”

According to Kathuli, assembling the right team is fundamental to any budding startup. Kyanda’s team consists of young people in their 20s whose enthusiasm and ideas have helped drive the startup.

“This has helped Kyanda Africa become more competitive in the ever-growing fintech market. As part of the hiring criteria, we were target persons with whom we share a common vision and synergy, he says.