Nigeria’s Fintech Startup Trove Joins Ventures Platform’s Investment Portfolio

Nigerian micro-investing fintech startup, Trove Finance, has raised an unrevealed amount of funding from Ikoyi-based early-stage fund Ventures platform to enable more Nigerians to invest easily.

The stock market is known to be one of the most lucrative mediums through which Nigerians and Africans at large can make money. As companies such as Jumia continue to list on international stock exchanges, the opportunities become even more attractive.

The problem, however, lies in the fact that most of the investments are made by the privileged and the middle-class citizens in Nigeria.
Thanks to disgruntling rates associated with stock investing in Nigeria, buying shares in publicly listed companies is almost impossible for most people.

Another potent factor affecting stock trading in Nigeria is that the registration process often requires several walk-ins and an unnerving amount of paperwork. Because most Nigerians do not have the knowledge of stock trading, they often resort to engaging brokers to liaise between them and the stock, and that still, involves hefty charges.

Couple these shortcomings with lack of access to more developed markets like the New York Stock Exchange and companies like Lyft, Jumia, and Dropbox among others, one would reckon that a colossal problem persists in Nigeria’s share buying and selling sector.

Trove has created an app-enabled initiative that allows Nigerians to invest in publicly traded equity, bond or crypto-based assets using debit cards and bank transfers. The startup’s ability to execute has garnered them interest on the part of Ventures Platform.

According to a medium post by the investor, “Ventures Platform has always been a strong proponent of democratizing economic opportunities. Trove’s vision of a world of borderless investing is something that resonates with us, and the existence of such a product would be really impactful”.

Kayode Oyewole who announced the funding development, said that Ventures Platform is backing Trove also because it has built a micro-investing app that allows people to invest in financial securities both in Nigerian and global markets such as the US Exchange Traded Funds and Stocks of US companies.

Troves now joins the league of Ventures Platform-backed startups, including PayConnect, Accounteer, ThriveAgric, Printivo, Paystack – who raised USD 8 Mn, Wifi.com.ng and healthtech MDaaS who raised USD 100 K from the investor September last year. WeeTracker reported in October that Lagos-based rewards platform Thank U Cash raised undisclosed funding from Ventures Platform.

Ventures Platform, who mostly has an eye for fintehs in its country base, has made a total of 27 investments, 16 of which it participated as a leader investor. Trove which was founded in July 2018 by Austin Akagu, Desayo Ajisegiri and Oluwatomi Solanke, records this seed round as its first ever raise.