Nigerian fintech startup Pivo secures funding from Microtraction
Pivo, a credit-focused financial services company for SME supply chain players in Nigeria, has acquired an unknown amount of money from early-stage venture capital firm Microtraction.
Pivo, founded last year by Nkiru Amadi-Emina and Ijeoma Jacquelyn Akwiwu, provides a novel and more effective approach for SME owners in the supply chain sector to obtain financial services. Pivo Capital, the company’s flagship product, enables businesses to obtain working capital loans of up to $50,000 to help them scale their operations.
It also offers trade finance, which enables suppliers to fulfill client orders even when they lack upfront funds, and aims to debut its Finance product in beta by the end of the first quarter of this year.
Users will be able to open and manage a corporate bank account tailored to their needs with this capability.
Pivo raised financing from Microtraction in September to fund this product expansion. Microtraction, which was founded in 2017, invests in startups at the very beginning of their development. It has so far backed a slew of Nigerian startups, including Accounteer, Riby, Thank U Cash, CowryWise, Wallet.ng, Schoolable, 54gene, Termii, and Festival Coins, as well as Ghana’s Bit Sika and Kenya’s Raise. Pivo is one of 14 investments undertaken by the company in 2021.
“There are over 20 million SMEs in the supply chain/logistics industry, and these enterprises contribute around US$19.2 billion, accounting for 40% of the yearly US$48 billion revenue generated in this sector,” Microtraction stated in a statement.
“In the worldwide market, Tradeshift, a supply chain finance firm backed by American Express and Goldman Sachs, recently surpassed the US$1 trillion transaction value mark, more than doubling in only two years.” We anticipate Pivo’s success in the next years as it expands its multi-product strategy.”
Pivo had 100 active customers and had completed over $100,000 in loan applications at the time of the investment. Since then, these figures have more than doubled, with logistics subcontractors receiving 70% of all loans awarded.
