Nigerian startup Pivo is a credit-focused financial services company for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) players in the chain of supply that has raised an undisclosed amount of money from Microtraction, an early-stage VC firm.
Pivo was founded last year by Nkiru Amadi-Emina and Ijeoma Jacquelyn Akwiwu. It provides new and more efficient ways to financial services for SME owners. The new startup’s flagship product, Pivo Capital allows companies to access working capital loans of up to US$50,000 to help scale their business.
Pivo also provides trade financing support, which helps suppliers to fulfill orders from customers even when they lack upfront capital, by the end of the first quarter of this year, Pivo is expected to launch its Finance product with beta. With the Finance product feature, users will be able to access corporate bank accounts that have been tailored to their businesses.
To fund its product expansion, Pivo took on some capital from Microtraction in September. Microtraction was founded in 2017, it invests in startups at the earliest stage of their development, and thus, far invested in a host of startups in Nigeria, such as Cowrywise, Wallet.ng, Schoolable, Riby, Accounteer, 54gene, Thank U Cash, Festival Coins, Termii, and also a startup from Ghana called Bit Sika, as well as Raise from Kenya. Pivo makes one of the 14 investments the firm has invested in through the course of 2021.
Microtraction was recorded to have said in a statement, “There are about 20 million SMEs in the supply chain or logistics industry and these businesses contribute about US$19.2 billion revenue generated in this sector annually”
“In the global market, Tradeshift, a supply chain financing group that has American Express and Goldman Sachs on its cap table, recently exceeded the US$1 trillion transaction value mark, doubling in only two years. We expect Pivo to replicate this success in the coming years as it builds out its multi-product strategy”.
At the time of investment, Pivo had on board, 100 active customers and had processed more than US$100,000 in loan applications. Ever since, these numbers have doubled up, with 70% of the loan that was disbursed going to logistics sub-contractors.
Microtraction Invests In Pivo A Nigerian Fintech Startup
