Two Rwandan brothers have built a homegrown technology platform that is replacing handwritten ledgers with digital bookkeeping for thousands of small businesses, and on November 14, 2026, their company Kayko reported serving more than 15,000 enterprises across seven African countries.
Crepin and Kevin Kayisire, graduates of the African Leadership University, founded Kayko in 2021 to solve a problem they had watched for years in their own communities: shop owners and salon operators tracking sales and stock in notebooks, or using software never designed for African informal businesses. According to KT PRESS, the company has grown from that local insight into a regional platform for sales records, inventory, expenses and financial reporting.
From an ALU classroom to 15,000 businesses
The project began as a final-year capstone at the African Leadership University, where the emphasis on practical learning and problem-solving shaped the idea. Crepin Kayisire has said the university's first-year Leadership Core programme taught him to identify problems, work with data and make decisions under pressure.
Those skills became Kayko. The platform lets owners record sales, manage inventory, track expenses and read their financial position in real time, from the shop or from a distance.
Users describe the change in concrete terms. Gisele Irasubiza, a shop owner in Busanza, Kigali, previously struggled to understand her stock and finances. With Kayko she now monitors her business remotely, whether she is at the shop or working elsewhere.
The story fits a wider pattern of Rwandan innovation earning international recognition. As The New Times has reported, Rwandan creative-tech platforms have recently won grants in international competitions, and the country continues to expand digital connectivity despite gaps in how young people use new technologies.
Why digitized bookkeeping matters for small enterprises
The stakes go beyond tidy records. As Svijetfotografije notes, effective financial management, including budgeting, forecasting and reporting, determines whether small businesses survive, and bookkeeping is the task entrepreneurs most often neglect because it consumes time better spent selling.
Kayko answers that with one platform. In December 2025, the company raised $1.2 million from investors including Burrow Capital, the Luxembourg Development Agency, Hanga Ignite and develoPPP Ventures. The funding supports two ambitions: expanding the platform and building lending services that use the financial records businesses generate on the system to assess their needs and offer working-capital financing.
For a merchant with no collateral and no formal accounts, that data can be the difference between a loan and a closed door. The founders have stressed the discipline of building a reliable service in Rwanda first, before pushing deeper into other markets: a distinctly Rwandan approach that prizes excellence at home before conquest abroad.
Card payments on the horizon
The brothers are now preparing to let merchants accept card payments through mobile phones, alongside the existing management services. Kayko completed a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard assessment, validated on November 10, 2026, by Digital Jewels Africa.
The assessment covers the protection of cardholder data. It does not by itself authorize Kayko to provide regulated payment services in Rwanda; the company must still meet requirements set by the National Bank of Rwanda.
If approved, the service would place Kayko in competition with established merchant payment providers such as Flutterwave, Paystack and Pesapal. Its edge would be a single platform combining payments with bookkeeping, inventory and access to financing, rather than payments alone.
A market dominated by mobile money
The challenge is real. Rwanda's payment market runs overwhelmingly on mobile money. According to the National Bank of Rwanda, mobile merchant transactions rose 40 percent to 588 million in the year ended June 2025, while card transactions fell 23 percent to 1.6 million over the same period.
Card transaction value, however, grew 18 percent to Rwf157 billion. The Central Bank's October 2026 report put point-of-sale payments at roughly 1 percent of GDP, against 174 percent for mobile payments.
Those numbers show how steep the climb is for anyone expanding card acceptance. They also show the space available as more businesses adopt digital payment and financial management tools.
Kayko's plan reaches further than recording transactions. By using business data to assess financial performance, the company wants to open credit to small enterprises that banks have long ignored, and to pull them fully into the digital economy.
Frequently asked questions
What is Kayko?
Kayko is a Rwandan software platform founded in 2021 by brothers Crepin and Kevin Kayisire that helps small businesses record sales, manage inventory, track expenses and maintain financial records digitally.
How many businesses use Kayko?
The company reports serving more than 15,000 businesses across seven African countries, as of November 2026.
Can Kayko process card payments in Rwanda?
Not yet. Kayko passed a PCI DSS security assessment validated on November 10, 2026, but it must still meet requirements from the National Bank of Rwanda before offering regulated payment services.
How much has Kayko raised?
In December 2025, Kayko raised $1.2 million from investors including Burrow Capital, the Luxembourg Development Agency, Hanga Ignite and develoPPP Ventures.