Kenyan fintech startup Koa has launched a mobile app that aims to digitise the asset management industry by giving users the ability to save and invest their money in local mutual funds from their phones.
Formed in September by Alexis Roman and Delila Kidanu, Koa is currently in beta testing with a group of users, validating its initial hypotheses and customer demand.
The startup, which raised a pre-seed funding round late last year and was recently selected for the latest Catalyst Fund programme, is looking to disrupt the savings and investments market in East Africa.
“Annually, over 60 per cent of savings across Kenya are being held in informal channels – saving groups, SACCOs… The majority of these informal channels don’t give users the ability to control their finances or seek higher interest on their savings,” Roman told Disrupt Africa.
“Additionally, there was a lack of digital solutions across the East African market that offered savings and investment alternatives for users. Besides M-Pesa, users don’t really have much of a choice when it comes to digital financial services in Kenya.
Koa is looking to address that choice, and with the support of Catalyst Fund, both financial and otherwise, is now looking ahead to a full launch and then expansion across the East African region by the end of 2021.
