<aside> 🚀 Bamboo is helping Africans live their dreams through investing.
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Company Overview
In 2019 we set out to build the Fidelity of Africa. Our goal was simple — to give Africans and their money managers easy, fast, and secure access to both local & global capital markets to meet their financial goals and earn real returns. Today, we do that for 170,000+ Africans across Nigeria, Ghana, and South African (new).
With our consumer app, users from these countries can create a brokerage account in less than 3 minutes, fund their accounts in local currency via multiple payment options (including mobile money), and buy/sell fractional or whole shares listed on the US stock exchanges right from their mobile phones. Users in Nigeria can also access the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Nigerian Treasury Bills and our Fixed Returns product that offers USD 8% return p.a when you lock money in your Bamboo wallet. This is the first time Africans at scale can access the stock market and a range of investment products with ease. 75% of our users are first-time investors in stocks. We therefore heavily support their investing journeys with a robust library of educational resources that include investment guides on different sectors, stock market courses, events and webinars, social media videos that cover several investing and personal finance topics, and even a free stock advisor via our partnership with Motley Fool for the US market. Bamboo is currently the thought leader for investment insights and education in the region, which is one of the key reasons users like and trust us.
Over our, now 5 years of serving Africans, we have seen how investing has helped many of our users meet their financial goals like buying a house, paying for their child's education, helping young professionals get more serious about investing for their future, etc. We have also seen our users investing despite adverse macroeconomic movements and changing market cycles, leaning on us as their trusted financial partner to help them navigate volatilities. We therefore remain ever committed to our mission of supporting Africans to meet their financial goals, by adding on new asset classes and expanding the markets we serve across the continent.
Market Opportunity
According to the AfrAsia Bank Africa Wealth Report 2021, there is $ 2.0 trillion of private wealth held on the African continent. Assuming half of this ($1.0 trillion) is invested globally and with Bamboo earning 1% on investments, this presents a $10B annual revenue opportunity for Bamboo.
The referenced report (page 27) also states that ~$140B of High Net Worth (people with net assets >$1 million) wealth is tied up with wealth managers and private banks in Africa. The report also estimates that the African wealth management sector will grow by 40% over the next decade. This number would be much larger if Africans did not have to leave the continent to access global investment options and if more people had access to wealth management services.