Rise was founded by Eleanya Eke, Bosun Olanrewaju, Mayowa Dami Lawal, and Anthony Odiba who are co-founders. The startup enables Nigerians to invest in dollar-dominated assets around the world.
With Rise, Nigerians can now have access not only to great stocks like Facebook, Google, Tesla, and Jumia, but also rental properties, and Eurobonds among others. In this chat, Rise founder Eleanaya Eke tells Techawk how his startup is making buying shares easy for Nigerians and much more.
Can you tell us about Rise?
Rise is a digital product that allows users to invest passively in the best dollar-denominated assets around the world. Passively, in the sense that you don’t need to trade shares or buy assets yourself. You just need to fund your account and choose a duration, and Rise does the research, selects the assets, and monitors your portfolio. You can keep track of everything from your app, but you don’t have to do any of that work yourself. Rise is something I’ve been thinking about and working my way up to since maybe 2016, as a way to allow Nigerians to invest globally in dollars without leaving the country.
Not many Nigerians know that they can buy shares in foreign companies like Twitter, Apple, Jumia, Google etc. How is Rise changing this narrative?
Well, you can. And the best thing is that you don’t have to buy them yourself. We do it for you. You’re busy, you’re working and you’re not going to be researching and looking for great stocks. Rise will handle it for you, and give you access not only to great stocks like Facebook, Google, Tesla, and Jumia, but also rental properties, Eurobonds, and in the future, other interesting dollar-denominated assets. So you can sleep easy while we put your money to work for you. It’s the best wealth management offering out there, and we make it possible today just from our app.
Can you walk us through the step by step process of buying shares in a foreign company? How returns are paid and how users withdraw their dividends?
So once you sign up, you are presented with three options: equities (that is stocks), real estate or fixed income. Each has different returns expectations and risk levels. Once you select one option, or all three, you fund your account in naira. We convert it at the prevailing rate on that day and then invest into a portfolio of the related asset and during the investment duration you set, all interest, dividends or rental income is reinvested into your portfolio. When your investment is due, you receive the principals and returns back into your account, at the prevailing rates on the day you withdraw.
Rise is the only Nigerian startup accepted into the Techstars and Western Union Accelerator. Can you tell us more about this and how Rise Capital went about applying for the accelerator program?
I went through YC at my last startup, Buycoins, which really opened my eyes to how beneficial the right accelerator can be. So I always wanted to go through a program like that again. There are a lot of companies in our space that are, or would be, world class and will benefit from an experience like a Techstars or a YC, but not enough of us get in. That we got in was not just off the strength of our application, but a lot of other people in the ecosystem, at least two founders and investors who put in a good word for us. So in that sense, we’re grateful. It takes a village.
How will you describe the reception of Rise so far?
The reception has been incredible. Users love us. People love us. A user left a review that Rise was one of the best things that happened to her in 2020, and I was almost in tears. Because at the end of the day, you want to build something people want, something that solves a fundamental need, and in a way that helps our users and helps grow the economy. And having people really connect with that and benefit from that is really satisfying.
What is the adoption level of Rise? Where do you see Rise in the next 3 to 5 years?
Well, the adoption has been encouraging. There’s a lot of things we can’t do yet based on our current structure, but what we can do, we’re doing it well and our adoption curve is proving that. So over the next 3-5 years, our vision is that you see a dramatic difference in what the average person in Nigeria can do with their money and the kind of opportunities they have access to. And then, we hope to take on other areas of opportunity to build more value for our users.
How have you been able to fund Rise and what are your expansion plans?
We’ve raised some venture capital from some supportive investors, including Future Africa and ARM as well as some angels. Our expansion plans are mostly to do our current jobs well enough and excellently enough that our users give us more to do. We want to be driven by the demands of our users.
What Challenges did you face when setting up Rise?
Learning and understanding our local space and the peculiarities of our environment to support what we set out to build. Finding the right investors. Making sure we understood what is possible, what is allowed, and how to engage well with all the right people necessary to bring our vision to life. Normal early teething problems every startup deals with.
What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?
I don’t know that I’m qualified to advice budding entrepreneurs seeing as I’m one myself. But if I had to say one thing I’ll say: do what you’re passionate about and embrace learning as fast as you can. No one knows the answers. We’re all working hard and figuring it out.
