Bamboo, a Nigerian stock investment marketplace, has closed a $15 million Series A round led by Tiger Global and Greycroft.
Other investors in the round include Motley Fool Ventures, Saison Capital, Chrysalis Capital and Y-Combinator CEO Michael Seibel.
Founded in 2020 by Richmond Bassey and Yanmo Omorogbe, Bamboo is an investment platform that gives Africans the tools to build wealth from the ground up through real-time access to the global markets.
Bamboo said it currently has over 300,000 users; of that number, about 20% are active daily traders, while 75% never traded stocks before using the platform. In 2021, repeat depositors made up 85% of deposits on the Bamboo platform.
The stock investment startup plans to set up shop in Ghana and has more than 50,000 users on its waitlist. Similarly, there has been some demand from Kenya and South Africa, so Bamboo will look to move into those countries soon with this new funding.
Per use of the new financing round, Bamboo said it will be deployed to scale the company’s tech infrastructure for smoother processes and faster withdrawals.
The company also intends to introduce new offerings to add to its B2B product, allowing asset managers and fintech companies to integrate Bamboo into their offerings for their customers and trademark stock-trading product.
Commenting, CEO of Bamboo Richmond Bassey said: “What we essentially want to do is to make investing in the global stock market easy for Africans.
“In accessing investment options, especially in capital markets, both locally and globally, we want to make that easy for Africans because we’re driven to help Africans create and preserve wealth by owning shares in the world’s most successful companies.”
