Kuunda builds real-time credit infrastructure for mobile money platforms, enabling them to deliver instant, embedded lending products, where formal finance doesn't reach, but everyday financial life depends on it.

The mobile money ecosystem across emerging markets has become a backbone of financial access, but the infrastructure behind it was previously untested and misunderstood. Kuunda operates deep in the credit and liquidity layer of this ecosystem, often going completely unknown, so the challenge wasn’t just technical; it was narrative.

Despite powering everyday transactions for millions, Kuunda’s role in enabling mobile lending to function was buried in complexity and invisible to the untrained eye. As the company looked to raise capital, enter new markets, and strengthen its brand, it needed a story that made its impact impossible to ignore.

Our role was to help Kuunda reframe its business, not only as the unseen operator, but as a category-defining company building the real-time, embedded credit infrastructure that keeps money alive, trusted, and growing in the places that need it most.

Getting under the skin of Kuunda’s business meant immersing ourselves in the complex realities of emerging economies, not just how the money flowed, but how it was felt. We spoke with founders, agents, partners, and investors to understand the invisible pain points that Kuunda solves and why their credit and liquidity products matter on a human level.

We needed to help people see that Kuunda doesn’t just build credit solutions - it creates connections that form reliability, trust, and momentum for economies that depend on financial solutions to function.

From studying product workflows to tracing the path of an agent float top-up in Tanzania, we unpacked the emotional and operational friction that comes with financial delays, broken systems, and limited liquidity access. We analysed how Kuunda’s products remove these bottlenecks, and what that unlocks for people, platforms, and the markets they serve.

Connecting these insights back into Sleuth’s broader storytelling lens gave us the clarity to elevate Kuunda’s brand from infrastructure to critical ecosystem enabler. Building a brand around a business, not just solving for efficiency, but for financial inclusion at scale.

• Conduct an in-depth narrative investigation to uncover Kuunda’s unique story.
• Craft a compelling brand narrative rooted in connection and economic impact.
• Build a distinctive and memorable brand identity that resonates with its audience.
• Create a strong and compelling digital presence for the brand.
• Craft tailored stories to help on a fundraising journey.
• Launch the brand through targeted social media campaigns.
• Distribute and maintain a compelling brand message in an evolving market.
• Design and develop an onboarding experience to align the team to the narrative.

Crafting their story.

Empathetic interviews with founders, team members, investors, and partners, along with the experiences created in helping raise investment, provided us with the insights needed to craft a narrative DNA profile for Kuunda. This profile became the foundation for a compelling brand story, one that communicated Kuunda’s entire existence in a stable and consistent manner.

It’s often easy to paint a bleak picture of the market landscape when focusing on improving the economic climate of emerging economies, but Kuunda’s narrative was founded on real-life experiences and a genuine drive for building solutions that create lasting change. Emphasising the growing sentiment and need for change in many of these markets became the principle on which we built the narrative.

Thus, Kuunda’s role in the ecosystem (and foundational narrative pillar) was formed. Kuunda is the connective tissue in a previously disconnected financial ecosystem.

Selling their story.

Working with a newly defined narrative, we were tasked with moulding this sequence of stories into packaged narratives for a variety of audiences: potential investors, potential partners and prospective banks - no small task considering the variance in their unique needs and requirements.

Packaging these insights into pitch decks, explainer videos, sales materials, a website, and an onboarding experience pushed the usability of the stories to their limits, but into the market they were deployed, and into the minds of the audience they were embedded.

With funding secured, partnerships signed and products launched, the Kuunda narrative truly took shape.

Furthering their connection role.

Launching the Kuunda brand and narrative to the market was the final piece of the puzzle. With a wealth of insights into product, market and customer in hand, the deployment of this messaging through LinkedIn was the logical next step.

Using targeted messaging, a blend of organic and paid media and a strategy founded in true market insight gathered from the minds and mouths of those most effectively influenced by the brand, a few years of consistent messaging have yielded these results:

Kuunda always faced the risk of being only the silent engine behind the financial ecosystem, powering solutions that moved entire economies. Their story was buried in the background of complexity, invisible to the investors and partners that would move the brand forward. Throughout our relationship, we have helped Kuunda reshape and reframe their narrative - not simply as a supplier, but as category-defining infrastructure powering emerging markets. We positioned them as the connective tissue enabling financial resilience in emerging markets. This shift didn't just clarify their value; it amplified it. With a sharpened story, Kuunda secured new partnerships, expanded into additional markets, and solidified its role as a cornerstone in the infrastructure of financial inclusion.