Afrigather Nigerian fintech startup, Pivo, has closed a $2 million seed spherical that included participation from Precursor Ventures, Vested World, Y Combinator, FoundersX, and Mercy Corp Ventures. Pivo offers monetary companies – credit score, funds, and expense administration – to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) distributors inside giant manufacturing provide chains.
The startup was based by Nkiru Amadi-Emina and Ijeoma Akwiwu in July 2021, and based on Amadi-Emina, Pivo has disbursed over $3 million by way of Pivo Capital and transacted greater than $4 million by way of Pivo Enterprise accounts. She additionally informed TechCabal that Pivo presently has 300 lively SMEs and 10 ecosystem companions. She defined that ecosystems are bigger companies which have SMEs inside their worth chains, so Pivo works with them to serve their SMEs.
When requested what standards the startup thought-about earlier than approaching buyers, Amadi-Emina stated, “We have been seeking to contain buyers in our seed spherical off the again of the next standards: area experience, potential to observe on in subsequent rounds, and skill to supply strategic entry inside our chosen sector wanted to help us as we scale.”
Pivo’s monetisation technique relies on curiosity on loans and charges on chosen transactions. Pivo presently has two merchandise: Pivo Capital, which affords credit score to provide chain SMEs, and Pivo Enterprise, which affords financial institution accounts and instruments like e-invoicing, bulk funds, and invoice funds.
Amadi-Emina informed TechCabal that there are growth plans for East Africa within the works for 2023. She additionally added that the startup will likely be constructing and including new options to present merchandise, particularly round funds, which is a significant ache level for provide chain SMEs.
“There will likely be new product growth as nicely to enhance transaction administration and cost reconciliation. Money circulate administration is without doubt one of the largest challenges you discover in provide chains, and whereas we’re already tackling it with present merchandise, there’s much more we plan to do,” she stated.
Talking on the funding, Daniel Block, funding principal at Mercy Corps Ventures, stated, “After we initially invested final 12 months, we believed that the founders’ deep logistics business experience and dedication to unattended provide chain SMEs would allow Pivo to quickly carve out a deep moat within the aggressive fintech lending area. As Pivo launches extra merchandise to graduate from a pure fintech lender to a full-fledged monetary companies platform, we’re excited to see the corporate ship a full suite of economic companies particularly designed for the wants of the unattended supply-chain sector SMEs they serve.”
