Hisa, a Kenyan investment startup founded by Kenya Wall Street’s Eric Asuma and Eric Jackson has been acquired by Rise, a Nigerian stock investment startup, TechCabal reports.
Hisa, which will remain independent after acquisition, is building the infrastructure to allow everyday Africans to easily invest in both local and global assets including stocks, ETFs, bonds and alternative investments just like its new owner Rise. Hisa argues that less than 1% of the adult population in Sub-Saharan Africa invests in the capital markets and its mission is to make that possible through simplified investment products and educational content.
“We like the Hisa name because it resonates well with Kenyans so we have no plans on changing it,” Rise CEO Eke Urum told TechCabal. “We are not planning to make a lot of changes; it is time to understand the company, the culture, the context, and the market that we are coming into.”
The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed Hisa is backed by Kenya’s Faida Investment Bank, Chipper Cash’s Ham Serunjogi, and Majid Moujaled among other shareholders.
Nigeria’s Risevest, an asset manager providing Nigerians with access to foreign investments, last year acquired Chaka, a a digital trading platform similar to Hisa to build a more formidable and comprehensive financial partner for their customers independently, the terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 2019, Chaka allows users to buy shares of publicly traded companies in Nigeria and the United States fractionally for as little as $2. In 2021, Chaka received a digital sub-broker license just three months after it was nearly shut down by the Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) for operating without a license.
Chaka was launched in partnership with DriveWealth, LLC, a U.S. based leader in global digital trading technology and facilitated by Citi Investment Capital Limited and had over 4000 assets and indexes from companies such as Apple, Alibaba, Google, the S&P 500 index and many more. Hisa licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya, also worked with DriveWealth to invest in fractional shares of U.S. stocks, while benefiting from educational content such as news, podcasts, and user generated discussions geared toward improving financial health directly through the app. Therefore this acquisition can be seen as DriveWealth’s consolidation, in a way.
Chaka and Rise also had their bank accounts frozen by the Central Bank of Nigeria but misunderstanding was quickly resolved.
Before the acquisition, Chaka had raised $1.5 million announced plans to expand its footprints in West Africa to reach more retail investors and attract more foreign players to African Capital Markets and sign up partnerships with asset managers, financial technology firms, and regulators. Hisa might be eyeing new markets too, especially the larger east African region which has become so attractive for investments due to the growing internet penetration, rising literacy rates and the population’s growing purchasing power.
Hisa at a point joined the NVIDIA Inception programme to accelerate its auto-investing and robo-advisory products as well as offer it the opportunity to collaborate with other AI-driven organizations. Hisa also partnered with INGOT Brokers to provide clients with unprecedented access to international markets. These cover a variety of financial derivatives and instruments, including commodities, stocks, indices, ETFs, and currencies.
“Our goal with Hisa App is to improve financial literacy and make the whole investing process simpler through a social feed designed to make it possible to follow other investors and domain experts, see what they are investing in, exchange ideas,” said Asuma during launch of the wealth management platform that makes investing social. The app allows users access to different investment options like stocks and ETFs. The app also provides educational content like news, podcasts, and user-generated discussions aimed at improving users’ financial literacy