Project Overview
Project Description
Masunga is a tech-for-good company whose mission is to make essential services accessible for underserved communities by supporting microlenders who operate at the last-mile. PaygOps, its flagship SaaS CRM product, provides scalable lending and operational rails to microlenders serving hardest to reach populations.
Bridgin, launched in 2022, is Masunga’s most recent product: a capital market solution combining a tech infrastructure with a legal solution, allowing microlenders to sell books of loans and receivables to investors in exchange for upfront liquidity – hence tackling working capital bottlenecks for expansion. Bridgin provides investors and originators with a data-driven investment platform layered on an SPV-as-a-service offering, providing both parties with a transparent, standardized, and trust-driven investment experience.
Bridgin’s web app allows investors and microlenders to analyze, predict, and manage receivables payments. These aspects are key to supporting investment analysis and reduce transaction risks, hence allowing more investors to participate and inject capital toward field companies. Core aspects of the platform include:
- Direct integration with microlenders’ loan management software and payment systems, to automate data flow, reconciliation, and monitoring.
- AI-powered dashboards on portfolio performance, expected returns, and impact indicators, where investors can select receivables aligned with their risk and impact profiles
- Centralized and standardized due diligence and financial modeling on participating companies
- An agnostic product, built to be integrated with as many CRM and payment channels as necessary
This Impact Project will help to further develop the following features:
- Portfolio risk modelling: Use the existing data about hundreds of thousands of contracts and payments to create models able to give insights about the possible future performance of the portfolio to help distributors and investors make better decisions about portfolio pricing.
- Automated Due Diligence: Enhance the due diligence process through automation, specifically by (1) Developing an embedded company-underwriting feature for the automatic calculation of key financial ratios and (2) Supporting the creation of an intelligent data extraction tool for financial statements.
Impact
Bridgin unlocks liquidity for last-mile distributors and essential-service SMEs by financing their receivables. This drives meaningful social inclusion and environmental benefits:
- Greater Access to Essential Products: Bridgin enables originators (PAYGo solar, clean cookstoves, water filters, productive-use assets) to reach more low-income households, improving energy access, productivity, and health.
- Faster Adoption of Clean Energy: By scaling climate-positive distribution, Bridgin supports the shift away from kerosene, diesel, and other polluting fuels, reducing household emissions.
- SME Strengthening and Job Creation: Improved liquidity lets originators expand operations, hire more staff, and reinforce service networks (supporting local jobs, especially for youth and women).
- 4. Advancement of Financial Inclusion: Repayment data from PAYGo and receivables-linked products helps consumers build credit histories and access future financial services.
Eligibility Criteria
Skills / Experience:
- Required:
- Python programming skills with experience in data analysis libraries (e.g., Pandas, NumPy, Scikit-learn).
- Data analysis and statistics – interpreting model outputs and validating assumptions, and familiarity with data analysis methodologies (e.g. logistic regression, decision trees, or ensemble models, feature engineering, etc.)
- Experience with model evaluation and validation (metrics like AUC, accuracy, precision/recall, and cross-validation).
- Effective communication skills, able to explain decisions and insights to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred fellow local experience (All projects can be completed remotely):
- N/A
Preferred timezone (when the Fellow should be available for meetings):
- Compatibility with CET (UTC+1)
