Alvin, a Kenyan smart money manager app that helps users align their daily spending around savings goals, has secured a pre-seed funding round of $740,000 as it continues to develop its product, which is now in private beta.
Ingressive Capital led the round, which also included Zephyr Acorn, Voltron Capital, Future Africa, and Tahseen Consulting. Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade and Tony Nicalo, the former CEO of marketing company Dondé, were among the other significant investors in the round. It also includes US$100,000 from Forum Ventures, a US-based B2B SaaS-focused accelerator program, after Alvin was selected to participate in its W22 batch, which begins this month, as well as a few additional American and Kenyan angels.
Founded in May 2021,Alvin is a smart money manager app that uses technology to help users track their finances and create simple budgets around saves, ultimately attaining financial goals and objectives.
Last year, the startup launched its flagship product, the Alvin App v1 Labrador public beta, as a soft launch to allow it to make changes before an official debut, and closed the year with an oversubscribed $740,000 pre-seed investment round.
Alvin was designed to address the lack of localization in financial apps across Kenya, as well as the lack of savings guidance to help in the acquisition of needed assets and the lack of daily support to assist consumers in saving for long-term goals.
The Alvin app’s initial version, Labrador, is now in private beta. It includes M-Pesa cost tracking and the ability to construct a budget in two minutes, showing users how much they can spend each month on things like groceries, entertainment, and rent depending on their income and most important savings goal.
The startup intends to incorporate card transaction tracking for Kenyan banks and the option to donate to high-interest savings accounts without having to leave the Alvin app in its product offers.
The Alvin app will be available to the public in Kenya in the coming months, but the startup has already set its sights on the rest of the world.
