Hello World: We are Kini

Welcome to the very first edition of the Kini Journal.

If you're receiving this newsletter, you're someone who has supported us, advised us, encouraged us, challenged us, or simply expressed interest in what we're building. Thank you for being here.

We believe the journey is just as important as the destination. Through this newsletter, we'll share what we're learning, what's working, what isn't, and how Kini evolves along the way.

The Problem We're Obsessed With

Across Africa, supporting loved ones is rarely something we do alone. Whether it's helping parents, paying school fees, buying groceries, contributing towards funerals and celebrations, or stepping in during an emergency, support is often a collective effort that has existed for generations.

Yet despite how collective our financial lives are, the tools we use remain surprisingly individual.

Today, most family contributions happen through a combination of WhatsApp messages, bank transfers, screenshots, spreadsheets, and goodwill, with one person usually holding it all together.

But what if it didn't have to be this way?

We believe there is a better way.

Where Kini Began

Kini was born through our participation in the Jasiri entrepreneurship program.

Like many founders, we didn't start with a solution. We started with a question:

How do families coordinate financial support without creating stress, confusion, and unequal responsibility?

Since identifying this problem, we've spoken to families, professionals, caregivers, parents, siblings, and individuals across different income groups.

The stories have been remarkably similar:

• A daughter managing her mother's healthcare costs alone.
• Financial conversations among siblings start one way and end up another.
• Nobody knowing who has paid what.
• Ad hoc payments with little planning or visibility.
• Family members wanting to contribute but lacking visibility into what is needed.
• People carrying "black tax" responsibilities with very little support infrastructure.

Again and again, we heard the same thing: the problem isn't willingness to help; it's coordination.

That's where Kini comes in.

What We're Building

We are building Kini to make it easier for families and communities to support the people they care about. Kini is a shared contribution platform that allows people to pool money, coordinate support, and manage shared financial responsibilities in one transparent place.

Whether it's supporting ageing parents, covering school fees, managing healthcare expenses, responding to family emergencies, or contributing to community causes, Kini helps everyone stay informed and aligned.

Our vision is simple: Money, with meaning.

We believe financial support should create connection, not confusion. Visibility, not uncertainty. Collaboration, not burden.

Why Kini?

The name Kini is a Nguni word that speaks to "your people," "your relatives," "your kin," and those connected to you through relationships and community.

We chose the name because it reflects the very heart of what we're building: a platform that helps families, friends and communities come together to support one another financially.

At its core, Kini is about making it easier to care for the people who matter most.

Meet the Team

Behind Kini are two founders who are deeply passionate about solving meaningful problems that affect millions of African families. More importantly, we're building from lived experience.

Like so many people across Africa, we love our families and feel a deep sense of pride, responsibility, and duty towards them. Yet we've also experienced firsthand the frustrations, inefficiencies, and lack of visibility that often come with coordinating financial support for loved ones.

As entrepreneurs, operators, builders, and problem-solvers, we believe financial technology should strengthen human relationships, not complicate them. That belief is what led us to build Kini.

The dynamic duo behind Kini, Rudo and Sisi, met in November 2025 after being selected to join the Jasiri Talent Investor Programme, a pan-African entrepreneurship fellowship dedicated to discovering, supporting, and investing in high-potential founders as they identify, validate, and build ventures that solve some of Africa's most pressing challenges.

During the programme's intensive three-month residential phase at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, we explored our differences, discovered our shared values, and searched for the problem we felt uniquely called to solve. After months of learning, testing ideas, and challenging one another, we realised we were both deeply drawn to the same problem.

So we joined forces and committed ourselves to tackling family financial coordination head-on.

Since then, we've been focused on understanding the problem before rushing to build a solution.

Some highlights from the past few months include:

• Conducting extensive customer discovery interviews
• Testing assumptions around family financial coordination
• Refining our product vision
• Exploring our solution

Every conversation has helped us sharpen our understanding of what families truly need, and those insights continue to shape the future of Kini.

As we grow, we'll introduce more of the advisors, partners, supporters, and future team members helping bring this vision to life.

What's Next

Over the coming months, we'll be focused on:

• Expanding customer research
• Building and testing our first MVP
• Growing our community of early supporters
• Validating product-market fit
• Sharing insights from the families we're learning from

This is just the beginning...

Why Follow the Journey?

We're not simply building another fintech product.

We're exploring a question that sits at the heart of many African households:

How can technology make collective financial support easier, fairer, and more transparent?

Whether you're a supporter, future customer, investor, friend, family member or simply someone curious about what we're building, we're grateful you're here.

Building a company takes a village, and while we're still at the very beginning of this journey, we're excited to bring you along for the ride.

Thank you for believing in us, asking tough questions, sharing your experiences, and cheering us on.

We couldn't do this without you.

Rudo & Sisi
Co-Founders, Kini. Money, with meaning.