Tech in Africa
Nigeria’s lifestyle and financial ecosystem app Sparkle has raised a $3.1 million seed round from a group of all-Nigerian investors. The investment will be channeled towards scaling the platform’s talent teams across the sectors of engineering, financial risk, marketing, and investment department used while investing in automated back-end processes and digital infrastructure. The round raises Sparkle’s total funding thus far to $5.1 million.
The raise was led by Leadway Assurance, Trium Networks, and several other Nigerian high network individuals in what made an impressive all-Nigerian investor group. Sparkle had previously raised $2 million in family and pre-seed rounds.
Since its 2019 launch, Sparkle has developed a digital-first user tribe offering access to features such as savings, bill payments, airtime/cable/utility/transport top-ups, ability to request or send funds, splitting bills, review spending breakdowns – all through the Sparkle App which is available on Google Play and the App Store.
From 2020/21 Sparkle experienced triple-digit growth and maintains focus on connecting Nigerians and the global Nigerian Diaspora by building this type of financial services platform aimed at improving the financial lifestyle of its users and allowing for borderless transactions. In 2021 Sparkle launched Sparkle Business, targeted at a new generation of digitized Nigerian MSMEs and SMEs.
Sparkle Founder and CEO, Uzoma Dozie, spoke on the seed round pointing out that the group of investors and business builders are “bullish about Nigeria and the opportunity the country presents in terms of building global networks and communities.”
Sparkle has achieved significant progress and has been able to partner with different financial players such as Visa, Network International, PriceWaterHouse Cooper Nigeria, even securing a license from Nigeria’s Central Bank.
