NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

By Yomi Kazeem

Fintech startups are the rave across African tech ecosystems but the sector has been increasingly defined by payments specialists. This is somewhat unsurprising given how global payments giants have fueled interest by investing hundreds of millions of dollars.

But beyond payments and digital banks, there’s a growing crop of “wealthtech” or wealth management startups offering investment opportunities to willing users in Nigeria. More specifically, some of these platforms focus primarily on helping a generation of young Nigerians invest in foreign stocks and assets easier than ever before.

After starting Rise informally as an investment club among friends, Eleanya Eke chose to formalize operations as a fund management company given the scale of interest.  The club of Nigerian professionals had teamed together to buy and flip or rent residential property in the United States but as the group grew demand rapidly evolved. “We first started with US real estate but a lot more people were interested in US stocks. All of that informed our move as there’s a really strong demand for it—especially among the internet-connected crowd.” Now in beta phase, Eke says Rise already has over 1,000 users.