Cascador and Sterling Bank Launch $200M Startup Loan Fund

In Short

Cascador and Sterling Bank have set up a $200 million fund to help Nigerian startups and small businesses access bank loans. The fund shares the risk if borrowers fail to repay.

What Happened

Cascador and Sterling Bank launched a $200 million vehicle called the SME Credit Backstop.

It is not a direct lending programme. Instead, it acts like a guarantee, meaning it promises to cover part of a lender’s losses if a borrower defaults. That lowers the bank’s risk and can make it easier to approve loans for companies that do not have enough collateral (assets pledged to secure a loan, like land or equipment).

The partners say the backstop can support up to $1 billion in loans at a time. Sterling will still make the final decision on whether to lend, after its own checks.

The fund plans to consider businesses nominated by venture capital firms and venture studios that already back them. It will also use AI-powered underwriting, which is a software-driven way to assess repayment ability using data, similar to a more automated credit committee.

Why It Matters

Debt is still hard to access for many startups in Nigeria, even when they have growing revenues. Many banks view early and growth-stage companies as high risk, especially without hard assets to pledge.

This type of risk-sharing structure targets that gap by turning investor backing and operating data into something banks may trust more.

If it works, it could shift more Nigerian venture-backed companies toward structured working capital, equipment loans, and other debt options, rather than relying only on equity rounds. It could also help banks build more confidence in startup lending, which is still small compared to global levels.