- Company
- Kiva
- Role
- Co-Founder
- Est. Net Worth
- $5 Million (Est.)
- Stage
- Emerging
- Industry
- Finance
Jessica Jackley
Co-Founder at Kiva
About
Jessica Jackley co-founded Kiva in 2005, creating the world's first peer-to-peer microlending platform that allows anyone with an internet connection to lend as little as $25 to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Inspired by a lecture by Muhammad Yunus on microfinance, Jackley traveled to East Africa to interview small business owners, then built a website to connect them directly with lenders. Kiva has since facilitated over $2 billion in loans to nearly 5 million borrowers across 80 countries, with a repayment rate above 96%. After Kiva, she co-founded ProFounder (an early equity crowdfunding platform) and has taught social entrepreneurship at USC, continuing to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley innovation and global poverty alleviation.
Current Company
Kiva — Co-Founder
Microloans for the Internet Age
Jessica Jackley co-founded Kiva in 2005 after attending a lecture by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of microfinance. Inspired by the idea that small loans could transform lives, she traveled to East Africa to meet entrepreneurs firsthand — a baker in Uganda, a goat farmer in Kenya, a seamstress in Tanzania. Their stories became the basis of Kiva's model: individual lenders on the internet could fund specific entrepreneurs in developing countries with loans as small as $25, creating a personal connection between lender and borrower that traditional aid organizations couldn't replicate.
Kiva grew from a website Jackley helped build in her living room to the world's largest peer-to-peer microlending platform, facilitating over $2 billion in loans to nearly 5 million borrowers across 80 countries, with a repayment rate consistently above 96%. The platform demonstrated that microfinance could operate at internet scale and that ordinary people — not just banks and foundations — could participate in global economic development.
Beyond Kiva: Crowdfunding and Social Entrepreneurship
After leaving Kiva's day-to-day operations, Jackley co-founded ProFounder, an early equity crowdfunding platform that allowed entrepreneurs to raise capital from their communities. Though ProFounder shut down in 2012 due to regulatory constraints (the JOBS Act hadn't yet legalized equity crowdfunding), it was ahead of its time and previewed the wave of crowdfunding platforms that would follow.
Jackley has since focused on teaching and investing, serving as a venture partner and lecturing on social entrepreneurship at USC's Marshall School of Business. Her influence extends beyond any single company — Kiva proved that technology could democratize finance, ProFounder pushed the boundaries of what community investment could look like, and her teaching cultivates the next generation of entrepreneurs who see profit and purpose as complementary rather than competing goals.