To accelerate growth, $3.8 M pre-seed funding raised by Nigerian fintech startup Prospa
Prospa is a micro-business banking and software platform founded in 2019 by Frederik Obasi, Chioma Ugo, and Rodney Jackson-Cole. It allows users to open a fully functional bank account in five minutes and provides access to a suite of tools including invoicing, inventory management, employee payroll, an e-commerce platform, and an analytics dashboard.
The business already has thousands of monthly subscription fee-paying subscribers and is increasing its user base by 35% month over month. On the platform, users have submitted 360,000 invoices and tracked 20,000 unique inventory items monthly.
Prospa participated in the Y Combinator accelerator earlier this year, and the US$125,000 it received there is a part of this US $3.8 million round, which the company claims is the highest pre-seed sum ever obtained by a Nigerian business and was 380 percent oversubscribed.
Global Founders Capital (GFC) and Liquid 2 Ventures were among the investors in the round. Mercury’s Immad Akhund, Ramp’s Karim Atiyeh, Teachable’s Ankur Nagpal, Todd Goldberg, and Rahul Vohra’s angel investment fund, and executives from Square, Facebook, and Nubank also participated in the round.
Prospa intends to use the funds to speed up client acquisition, expand its staff with an emphasis on product and engineering, and expand its product portfolio.
“At Prospa, we believe that successful small businesses can foster prosperity for Nigerians everywhere. Our goal is to power every Nigerian entrepreneur so that they achieve scale. This is the opportune moment: we’re seeing a huge demand for our service,” said Obasi, Prospa’s chief executive officer (CEO).
“The Prospa team is building a world-class product that is tailored to the needs of Nigeria’s entrepreneurs. They have executed brilliantly and we’re happy to partner with Prospa on their journey to become the OS for Nigeria’s entrepreneurs and micro-businesses,” said Don Stalter, GFC head of North America.
