Kenyan fintech startup, Alvin, has closed a $740,000 pre-seed funding round to scale its product which is in the private beta phase.
Founded in May 2021, Alvin is a smart money manager app leveraging technology to help users track their finances and set easy budgets around savings, ultimately achieving financial goals and objectives.
The startup launched its flagship product, the Alvin App v1 Labrador public beta, as an intentionally soft launch while it made amendments ahead of a formal launch, and ended last year by closing an oversubscribed $740,000 pre-seed funding round.
The round was led by Ingressive Capital and included Zephyr Acorn, Voltron Capital, Future Africa as well as Tahseen Consulting. Other notable investors in the round included Paystack CEO Shola Akinlade, and Tony Nicalo, the former CEO of marketing company Dondé. It also includes $100,000 from US-based B2B SaaS-focused accelerator programme by Forum Ventures after Alvin was selected to take part in its W22 batch starting this month, while a few additional American and Kenyan angels also participated.
Alvin was built to solve the lack of optimisation for the local context in financial apps across Kenya, lack of savings guidance to help acquire needed assets, and the absence of daily support to help individuals save for goals that require consistency for long periods of time.
The first version of the Alvin app — Labrador, is currently in private beta. It features automated expense tracking for M-Pesa, and the ability to create a budget in two minutes, showing users how much they can spend on things like groceries, entertainment and rent each month based on their income and most important savings goal.
The company has a target to include in its product offerings, card transaction tracking for Kenyan banks and the ability to contribute to high-interest yield savings accounts without having to leave the Alvin app.
The Alvin app will launch publicly in Kenya in the next few months, but the startup already has international ambitions.
With powerhouses Ingressive Capital, Shola Akinlade, Voltron Capital and Future Africa onboard, the company has immediate plans to expand to Nigeria in the latter half of 2022.
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