NAIROBI, Kenya, June 18 – Acorn Holdings has partnered with Absa Bank Kenya and Co-operative Bank of Kenya to roll out a programme that will help university students access accommodation financing and business start-up capital.
The initiative, dubbed the Zinduka Graduate Enterprise Programme, seeks to support students from their time in university through to entrepreneurship after graduation.
Under the programme, students will access unsecured housing loans to finance accommodation in purpose-built student housing facilities, while graduates will become eligible for business loans ranging from Sh200,000 to Sh500,000 to launch enterprises.
Acorn expects the programme to support between 5,000 and 10,000 new businesses annually.
“The formal job market is only able to absorb about one in ten graduates. This means the vast majority must create their own opportunities through entrepreneurship rather than rely on formal employment,” said Acorn Holdings Chief Executive Officer Edward Kirathe.
“Zinduka bridges a critical gap by connecting a student’s journey from securing their first home away from home to accessing the capital needed to launch their first business. It is a pioneering model that no housing company in Kenya, and arguably across the continent, has implemented before,” he added.
The programme will operate in two phases.
In the first stage, students and their parents will be listed as co-borrowers on unsecured accommodation loans, allowing students to begin building a formal credit history while pursuing their studies. Monthly repayments will start from Sh4,000.
According to Acorn, students who complete four years of consistent repayments will graduate with both an academic qualification and a verified credit record, improving their ability to access financing in the future.
In the second phase, graduates will qualify for enterprise financing under the Zinduka Enterprise Programme.
“Financial institutions find it difficult to lend to fresh graduates because they have no basis to assess their creditworthiness. Through Zinduka, students will be able to create a usable four-year credit record, making it easier to access funding for their businesses,” Kirathe said.
He added that the credit record will be supported by an Acorn-funded first-loss guarantee to reduce lending risks for participating banks.
The programme comes as Kenya grapples with rising youth unemployment, with many graduates increasingly turning to entrepreneurship amid limited opportunities in the formal job market.
The launch also builds on Acorn’s growing presence in the student accommodation sector. In the year ended December 2025, Acorn Investment Management Limited posted a profit of Sh1.52 billion, representing a 9.2 percent increase from 2024.
The growth was driven by stronger performance from its student accommodation real estate investment trusts (REITs), with income from the Acorn Student Accommodation Income REIT rising 21 percent to Sh670 million, while revenue from the Acorn Student Accommodation Development REIT increased to Sh854 million.
