Pivo, a credit-focused financial services company for SME players in the supply chain in Nigeria, has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Microtraction, an early-stage venture capital firm.
Pivo, founded last year by Nkiru Amadi-Emina and Ijeoma Jacquelyn Akwiwu, provides a new and more effective approach for SME owners in the supply chain sector to obtain financial services. Pivo Capital, the company’s flagship product, allows businesses to get up to $50,000 in working capital loans to help them grow.
It also offers trade financing, which enables suppliers to fulfill customer orders even if they lack the necessary upfront funds, and plans to launch its Finance product in beta by the end of the first quarter of this year. Users will be able to open and manage a corporate bank account that is customised to their business using this functionality.
Pivo took on some funding from Microtraction in September to help fund this product expansion. Microtraction, which was founded in 2017, backs a number of Nigerian businesses, including Accounteer, Riby, Thank U Cash, CowryWise, Wallet.ng, Schoolable, 54gene, Termii, and Festival Coins, as well as Ghana’s Bit Sika and Kenya’s Raise. Over the course of 2021, the firm will make 14 investments, including Pivo.
“There are around 20 million SMEs in the supply chain/logistics industry and these businesses contribute about US$19.2 billion, which forms 40 per cent of the US$48 billion revenue generated in this sector annually,” Microtraction said in a statement.
“In the global market, Tradeshift, a supply chain financing group that has American Express and Goldman Sachs on its cap table, recently exceeded the US$1 trillion transaction value mark, doubling in only two years. We expect Pivo to replicate this success in the coming years as it builds out its multi-product strategy.”
Pivo has onboarded 100 active customers and completed over $100,000 in loan applications at the time of the transaction. Since then, these figures have more than doubled, with logistics subcontractors obtaining 70% of all loans awarded.