Financial services price comparison startup TopCheck has closed its first funding round to significant success, only three months after launching in Nigeria.
TopCheck said it had raised funds totalling a six digit Euro figure – but could not disclose the exact amount – from German investment group Tech’n’Trade, and an anonymous angel investor.
Launched in December 2014, the TopCheck platform allows users to compare prices of financial products such as car insurance or health insurance. Users can receive a tailored quote on their desired product online and directly contact the service provider with the most attractive conditions.
“This first round will help us to improve our operations in Nigeria and start building a cutting edge technology” said co-founder Thomas von Pilar.
According to the TopCheck team, the financial services industry – particularly the business to consumer (B2C) segment – is experiencing strong growth, and is currently an untapped market in Nigeria – contributing only 0.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) – as compared to the sector’s 2.5 per cent contribution to the USA’s GDP.
As such TopCheck believes there is vast opportunity and demand for a strong African financial services comparison platform, which can introduce transparency to the growing market.
“The current annual growth rate of 20% in the B2C financial services industry poses a huge opportunity for TopCheck”, von Pilar states.
“Traditionally, the financial services sector in Nigeria is highly informal and customers end up paying more money than they should. The reason is that there is no centralised information source for comparing services. TopCheck is changing this with its online platform that is equally optimised for desktop and mobile,” he said.
“By giving users a full overview over all products in the market, TopCheck smartly brings transparency to the market.”
While the platform is currently live only in Nigeria, the startup said the intention is to scale across Africa rapidly.
