Pivo, a credit-focused financial services company for SME participants in the supply chain in Nigeria, has acquired an unknown amount of money from Microtraction, an early-stage venture capital firm.
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 industry to obtain financial services. The company’s primary product, Pivo Capital, enables businesses to get working capital loans of up to $50,000 to help them grow their operations.
It also offers trade finance, which enables suppliers to complete client orders even if they lack the necessary upfront funds, and plans to debut its Finance product in beta by the end of the first quarter of this year.
Users will be able to create and manage a corporate bank account that is customised to their business using this functionality.
Pivo borrowed money from Microtraction in September to help support this product growth. Microtraction, which was founded in 2017, invests in early-stage firms and has funded a number 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 the corporation plans to make in 2021.
“There are around 20 million SMEs in the supply chain/logistics industry and these businesses contribute about US $19.2 billion, which forms 40 per cent of the US $48 billion revenue generated in this sector annually,” Microtraction said in a statement.
“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.”
Pivo has onboarded 100 active clients and completed over $100,000 in loan applications at the time of the transaction. Since then, these figures have more than quadrupled, with logistics subcontractors receiving 70% of all loans awarded.
