Pivo, Nigerian Startup is a one-stop financial service platform for supply chain SMEs

Pivo, a Nigerian startup, offers an all-in-one financial services platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the supply chain sector, including banking, lending, and insurance solutions.

Pivo, founded in July 2021 by Ijeoma Akwiwu and Nkiru Amadi-Emina and launched in public beta in September, is aimed at any business involved in the import, export, manufacture, distribution, and retail of FMCG, logistics and haulage, and clearing and forwarding.

Pivo’s main products are as follows. Pivo Capital, the company’s flagship product, provides SMEs with loans up to $50,000. Meanwhile, Pivo Finance provides customers with a digital-only banking solution, whereas Pivo Plus provides insurance, corporate compliance, and tax regulation support.

“Pivo was born out of a problem we previously encountered while running another business that Nkiru and I co-owned,” Akwiwu told Disrupt Africa. “It was a business that used big data to find raw materials and connect importers and exporters.” Our customers struggled to execute large client orders due to insufficient financing, and as a result, they missed out on significant business opportunities because legacy banks were unwilling to provide the capital to support their transactions.”

Pivo was created by the duo to address these issues.

“There is a clear supply chain finance gap for SMEs that traditional banking institutions and other lending services companies are failing to fill.” Given the industry’s peculiarities, these businesses frequently have a narrow window to fully or partially execute orders, which means they have a limited time to access credit/working capital. Legacy banks do not appear to be offering convenient solutions that understand and effectively solve these problems for them,” Akwiwu said.

Pivo brings a niche approach to providing these solutions, which Akwiwu believes, when combined with its sector-specific experience, gives it a competitive advantage over other fintechs in the space.

Pivo brings a niche approach to providing these solutions, which Akwiwu believes, when combined with its sector-specific experience, gives it a competitive advantage over other fintechs in the space. The startup is also well-funded, having received pre-seed funding from investors such as First Check Africa, Ventures Platform, Microtraction, and Mercy Corps Ventures, and is planning to raise its seed round later this year. Meanwhile, Pivo is growing at a rate of 7X month on month.

“By the end of Q4 2021, we had processed over US$1 million in loan applications, and we expect to do more than ten times that this quarter,” Akwiwu said.

“We knew this would be an ambitious task before we started Pivo, but we are go-getters who move strategically.” We are proud to say that our niche approach, industry experience, and expertise have made it a little easier to navigate this terrain and identify opportunities. We know and understand our customers’ pain points and how to tailor our services to meet their business requirements. We began with lending but are now seeing a high demand for the other products on our roadmap.”

Pivo is currently only available in Nigeria, but it intends to scale and expand to other identified emerging markets such as Ghana, Rwanda, and Zambia by the end of this year.