Nigerian online financial startup InvestNaira has launched to help young people save and invest consistently online for the long term with ease.
Co-founded by Toni Nathaniel and Ebube Ezenwanne in February 2018 InvestNaira was set up to enable people to take charge of their personal finance towards growing wealth for the long term.
Speaking in an interview with Innovation Village on the drive behind InvestNiara, Ebube said, “We were deeply pained about the challenges people face when trying to invest from the amount of paperwork they have to bring to the high minimum deposit required and the queues they had to wait in.
“We focus on making saving and investing easy and helping our clients make it a habit for the long haul. We do this all on-line with no paperwork, queues or hassles. You can start with as little as N1, 000.”
To get started with InvestNaira, prospective clients simply visit www.investnaira.com, sign up and visit the set-up a subscription page where they choose their duration, plan and amount to be invested monthly. The startup invests on your behalf and by helping you build consistency; you are able to compound wealth for the long haul.
Only launched 8 months ago, however, the startup has steadily gained a good deal of traction.
“We have gained hundreds of users over the last 8 months and are growing steadily. We remain profitable by taking a management fee from returns on client investment,” said the Co-founder.
Speaking on the highs and lows since launch, Ebube said, “The major challenge faced was initial skepticism from prospective clients with questions like “How am I sure I won’t lose my money?.”
“However, we have built trust over time, convincing users that we are here to stay. Also, getting registered and dealing with bureaucracies in the system proved a bit difficult.
“Our greatest achievements are each of our clients. We are glad when we hear their testimonies of the value our platform has added to their lives. Beyond that, we were runner-up in the Tech Challenge Ogun and also won a grant from Ventures Platform.”
Ebube also had some words of advice for young entrepreneurs out there.
“As entrepreneurs, we need to apply ourselves to the business we are building, dreaming of it as we sleep and waking up each day and executing on our dreams,” he said.
On the future plans for InvestNaira, he said, “We plan to spread across Nigeria and then Africa, getting young people to build a consistent saving and investment habit. We are working to raise millionaires by simply adopting the save-invest-compound lifestyle.”
Commenting on the Nigerian tech ecosystem, Ebube said, “I must say its very exciting to have a lot of people come up with ideas and execute them with great speed and tenacity, giving sleepless nights for a cause they greatly believe in.”
