Building Infrastructure for African Trade: How Fluna is Rethinking Export Finance at Scale

When Miguel Sousa Dias and his team launched Fluna in 2021, the mission was clear but daunting: bridge Africa’s $81 billion trade finance gap. But rather than simply deploy capital into the void, they have taken a more nuanced, systems-driven approach - one that combines technology, market intelligence, exporter training, and strategic partnerships to unlock real value in Africa’s fragmented trade landscape.

That journey has required several bold choices - from reshaping Fluna’s core model based on real exporter needs, to navigating the regulatory and logistical complexities of pan-African expansion through modular product design and local partnerships. It also meant investing in exporter education through Fluna Academy, building internal tools to track trade transaction flows in real time, and evolving a leadership approach that fosters alignment across culturally diverse teams.

In this conversation, Miguel reflects on what it takes to design truly inclusive infrastructure in challenging markets and how Fluna is quietly rewriting the rules of engagement for Africa’s next generation of global exporters.

‍

Understanding the Real Barriers to Trade

Fluna’s journey began not in boardrooms or pitch decks, but on the ground, with exporters. “We spent time listening,” Miguel says. “What we heard was that while working capital is a major need, what exporters really struggle with is finding buyers, meeting quality standards, and managing the practical complexities of cross-border trade.”

This feedback shaped one of Fluna’s earliest and most defining strategic choices: to go beyond financing and build a more holistic export solution. Rather than operate as a pure fintech, Fluna evolved into a platform offering market access, capital, and training, designed to help exporters not just access opportunities but succeed in them.

Equally important was Fluna’s decision to focus on the most underserved parts of the value chain. “Some sectors look massive on paper,” Miguel notes, “but once you dig into the data, understand the players, the supply chain, the fragmentation, you realize they may not be viable entry points. We chose to play where our model could make the most difference.”

From day one, Fluna also adopted an ecosystem-led, asset-light model. “Instead of building everything ourselves, we’ve partnered with exporters, buyers, regulators, and logistics companies who already have deep local networks. That’s allowed us to move efficiently across markets while staying grounded in local realities.”

‍

Operating Across Borders, Without Losing Efficiency

As Fluna expanded its footprint across countries with vastly different regulatory, logistical, and financial environments, maintaining agility became a central challenge. The solution, according to Miguel, lay in three core principles: local partnerships, product modularity, and data.

“Each market is different, what works in Nigeria might not work in Ghana or Côte d’Ivoire. We rely on trusted local operators and regulators who understand their ecosystems intimately. That helps us stay responsive and compliant without reinventing the wheel.”

Fluna also built its platform architecture to be modular, enabling the team to tailor compliance, financing, and logistics workflows to specific country contexts without having to redesign the entire product stack each time.

But perhaps the company’s most powerful lever is data. Over time, Fluna has developed a pan-African export dataset (Fluna Atlas) that allows the team to track and benchmark exporter behavior across markets. “This kind of visibility helps us make smarter decisions. We’re not relying on assumptions about what ‘Africa’ looks like, we’re working with real-time patterns and behaviors,” he says.

‍

Why Education is Infrastructure

A defining feature of Fluna’s model is its commitment to exporter education through the Fluna Academy - a strategic investment that supports long-term performance and product adoption.

“We realized early on that deploying capital is the easier part,” Miguel explains. “The bigger challenge is whether exporters can deliver consistently - meet buyer standards, handle claims, and manage logistics effectively. That’s what Fluna Academy helps solve.”

Through the Academy, over 500 exporters have received training on everything from certification requirements to managing international buyer expectations. The impact has been clear - not just in better delivery rates, but in higher trust and repeat participation from both exporters and buyers.

“It’s not just about reducing our own risk,” he says. “We’re helping exporters build the capacity to compete globally. That’s what makes the whole model sustainable.”

‍

Evolving Leadership in a Distributed Team

Leading a cross-functional, pan-African company comes with its own learning curve and Miguel admits that his leadership style has had to evolve as Fluna has scaled.

“In the beginning, it was easier to stay close to everything - product, sales, operations. But as the team grew, I had to shift from doing to enabling, focusing on clarity, alignment, and trust.”

Fluna’s expansion into multiple regions also surfaced the cultural and operational nuances between markets. “What works in one country may land very differently in another. We’ve had to be deliberate about how we communicate and how we design internal systems so we can scale without losing coherence.”

This intentionality has not only helped keep teams aligned, it has also made the business more adaptable - better able to respond to the complex realities of doing business across African markets.

‍

The Hidden Costs That Matter

If there’s one area where Miguel believes more founders need to pay attention, it’s in understanding the true cost structures of their businesses.

“In fragmented, informal markets, it’s easy to feel good when you look at top-level unit economics. But when you go deeper - examining every step in your sales, compliance, and delivery processes - you start to see where value is being lost.”

In trade, a single deal might involve 10 or more stakeholders, each introducing hidden costs, risks, or delays. “We’ve seen how a few cents lost per step can quietly wipe out margins if you're not careful.”

To stay ahead, Fluna has embedded internal revenue operations tools directly into its platform. “We track every transaction end-to-end - where the money’s moving, where it’s leaking, and what that means for our exporters and our own bottom line,” he explains. “That level of visibility isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity in markets like ours.”

‍

Final Thoughts

For Miguel, building Fluna has never just been about trade finance, it’s about building the infrastructure for African exporters to compete and win in global markets. That requires more than funding. It demands an ecosystem mindset, relentless attention to detail, and a deep understanding of local complexities.

“We’re not trying to ‘fix’ Africa. We’re building with Africa - its exporters, its networks, its constraints and strengths,” he says. “And if we do that well, we won’t just unlock trade, we’ll unlock opportunity at scale.”

As Africa deepens its role in global trade, export finance is no longer just a funding challenge, it’s a systems challenge. Fluna is proving that with the right mix of local insight, technological flexibility, and ecosystem thinking, it’s possible to build infrastructure that not only unlocks capital, but also trust, capability, and long-term competitiveness for African exporters. For founders reimagining scale across fragmented markets, Miguel’s journey is a powerful reminder: the future belongs to those who build for complexity, not around it, and who see infrastructure not just as pipes and platforms, but as the quiet engine of inclusive prosperity.

‍

About Miguel

Miguel is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of Fluna, a position he has held since October 2021. Prior to that, he worked as a Consultant at McKinsey & Company from August 2017 to October 2021. He has had consulting and research roles at The World Bank, Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design, and Johns Hopkins Medicine | Laboratory for Craniofacial & Orthopaedic Tissue Engineering. 

Miguel holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Biomedical Engineering, Applied Mathematics and Statistics from The Johns Hopkins University. 

‍

Editor’s Note:
This article is a narrative synthesis based on a conversation with Miguel Sousa Dias, Co-Founder & CEO of Fluna. The content reflects Miguel’s insights, experience, and perspectives, edited for clarity and structure.

‍

‍