Nigerian investment platform Chaka announced the close of its $1.5 million pre-seed round to power digital investments for individuals and businesses.
According to TechCrunch, the pre-seed round was led by Breyer Capital, while 4DX Ventures, Golden Palm Investments, Future Africa, Seedstars, and Musha Ventures participated.
While stock trading is a fast-growing trend here in the U.S., it is hard for the “average” Nigerian to participate in trading local stocks — and nearly impossible for foreign ones, the outlet reports.
Tosin Osibodu started Chaka to create opportunities for Nigerians to invest in dollar assets and simultaneously allow foreigners to invest in Nigerian assets.
“If there’s more demand in the market, over time, we expect there’ll be more supply. If you fast-forward over a long period of time, we expect that our local capital markets will continue to grow,” he told TechCrunch. “We will provide borderless digital access to multiple solutions, and so it’s not just about Nigerians investing in the market, it’s about making the markets accessible for people locally and globally.”
With Chaka, Nigerians will have access to more than 10,000 stocks and ETFs trading on local and foreign capital markets.
“The thing about markets is that they have demand and supply with barriers to entry. We’re committed to lowering those barriers in local markets and by lowering barriers to investing for retail, more people will come to the market. In fact, more people came into the Nigerian stock market through us last year than any other broker. It’s like a demand-supply flywheel,” the CEO added.
