Nigeria-based Kwaba, a platform that helps renters conveniently pay rent and mortgage, has secured an unstated amount in its pre-seed round.
Kwaba intends to use this raiser to drive its roots deeper in the Nigerian market and into other parts of Africa. This will usher Kwaba into a wider market and enable the startup to establish a stronger user base.
The round saw participation from Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) and other investors, having received investment from Ingressive Capital in 2020. In the same year, it took part in the LABS by ARM accelerator, banking US$20,000 in additional funding.
Kwaba was founded in January 2020 with Obinna Molokwu seeking solutions to enable renters of shops, offices and apartments to achieve financial stability while still paying rents.
Kwaba’s solutions include a rent-now-pay-later feature that allows customers to get a rental facility that Kwaba would pay for and eventually get repaid overtime by the customer.The business-to-business platform also searches out apartment for its customers and acts as an accountability partner that helps renters save monthly before remitting the final sum to landowners. This way, rent does not become too burdensome for customers.
Savings on the platform are insured by Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and secured with bank-grade security features.
With 5K downloads on Google Play, Kwaba claims to have processed 30,000 rent payment requests worth N115 billion (over $275 million).
According to Obinna Molokwu, “Kwaba is helping to bridge the gap between property and finance. We understand the economic reality of Nigerian renters and have built our product to reflect this.
“We aim to improve the financial well-being of renters as we grow. For us, this new investment comes at a time when we are looking to strategically reposition and expand our services,” he said.
