Nigerian fintech startup Kwaba, which helps low and middle income earners to split their annual rent into convenient monthly installments, has secured a pre-seed round of funding to help it expand across Nigeria and Africa.
Founded by Obinna Molokwu in January 2020, Kwaba is a digital platform that helps facilitate home payment for Africans, and is aimed at Nigerians looking to pay rent in a modern way that reflects their financial reality.
The startup also offers services such as apartment search, quick funds at affordable rates, and further credit facilities for the purchase of properties. Over the last year, Kwaba had rent payment requests of NGN115 billion, with over 30,000 customers. Its mobile app, released in August 2021, has garnered almost 2,000 downloads.
Kwaba has now raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding 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. With this round, Kwaba is planning expansion across Nigeria and Africa to give more people access to its solution.
“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,” said Molukwu.
