PiggyVest Profile – About, Employees, Net Worth, Founders, And All You Need To Know

PiggyVest Profile – About, Employees, Net Worth, Founders, And All You Need To Know

Introduction

Piggyvest

PiggyVest is a Nigerian online savings platform that helps Nigerians achieve their financial goals. They have a wide reach and a great number of Nigerians have embraced it. It is also the first online savings platform created in Nigeria.

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About

PiggyVest Fintech Company was created by a group of people comprising Somto Ifezue, Odunayo Eweniyi and Joshua Chibueze. The idea to start PiggyVest came in the month of December in the year 2015. The idea was in form of digitizing an offline process of using wooden boxes to save money on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. The idea was birthed after they saw a tweet of a lady who was able to save three hundred and sixty-five thousand naira (#365,000) at the end of the year using a wooden box.

At the moment, they were all working at PushCV, a startup they created to rival Jobberman but had the advantage of vetting the Curriculum Vitae and sending out matching applicants to the companies. The business had hit a rock and they were downsizing staff. They went ahead with the PiggyVest idea and piggybank.ng was launched on the 7th of January 2016.

At the time of its launch, it operated as a ‘savings-only’ platform. The fully tested version was prepared for public use by April 2016. The Fintech Company grew gradually by user-recommendations and testimonials from customers. They became free adverts and were a testament and pointer to the team. This showed that they were helping to solve a real need in society.

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Three years after their launch, in April 2019, piggybank.ng rebranded to PiggyVest and began to offer direct investment opportunities to users. This allowed them to combine ‘discipline plus flexibility to grow their savings and investments.’

When one of the co-founders, Odunayo Eweniyi was interviewed, she said; “The journey was full of self-doubt, and it took a toll on my self-esteem. The first thing I learned was that I had to be adaptable, people don’t give you money then use your own.  For the first two years of running the company, I had to work a side job, with the entire proceeds invested into running the start-up.”

She also revealed that each person had their strengths and skills and it was easy to assign responsibilities. There were months however where they could not pay themselves salaries as proceeds were not coming in. There was also no accountant in the team, so they had to manage their finances themselves.

Location

piggyvest piggybank website

PiggyVest’s primary office is located at Tesmot House, 3 Abdulrahman Okene Close, off Ligali Ayorinde Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.

Executives

Odunayo Eweniyi – Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer (Nigeria)

Joshua Chibueze – Co-Founder (Nigeria)

Nonso Eagle – Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer (Nigeria)

Terry Kanu – Chief Partnerships (Nigeria)

Ibukun Akinola – Head- Customer Finance (Nigeria)

Ayo Akinola – Head Of Business Development (Nigeria)

Nkoli Ejesi – Product Marketing Manager (Nigeria)

Gabriel Esu – Senior Product Designer (Niger)

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Layo Ogunbanwo – Vice President Product Strategy (United States)

Ojimaojo Udale-Ameh – Senior Software Engineer (Nigeria)

Adewunmi Adewale – Account Manager (Nigeria)

Oluwaseunfunmi Okuntola – Customer Finance Officer (Nigeria)

Speede Aliyu – Investment Associate (Nigeria)

Other executives of PiggyVest Fintech Company include

Olumide Soyombo, representing LeadPath Nigeria and sits as a board member.

Employees

PiggyVest Fintech Company currently has thirty-nine (39) staff under its employ.

Salary

The average salary for an individual working at PiggyVest is One hundred and five thousand Naira (#105,000) per month.

A Customer Service Officer earns about a hundred and five thousand Naira per month.

Investors

Piggybank.ng, while seeking to break into the informal savings culture in Africa, announced a new product and service — Smart Target. Smart Target offers a more secure and higher return option for Esusu or Ajo group savings clubs common across West Africa. The announcement was made alongside the announcement for their Seed Funding. They realized a total of $1.1 million in their seed funding.

The financing for the seed fund was led with a one million dollars ($1,000,000) commitment from LeadPath Nigeria. Village Capital and Ventures Platform contributed Fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) each.

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Google for Startups is another investor in PiggyVest.

Net worth

PiggyVest Fintech Company is worth millions of dollars. Their exact net worth however is not known.

Growth

Unlike other startups that invest heavily in marketing, PiggyVest and its team kept it simple. Their growth is attributed simply to peer-to-peer recommendations. Odunayo Eweniyi in an interview said; “Our users are our influencers, our advocates. They like the simplicity of our products, they see medium-long term results in their savings accounts and then they are compelled to tell their friends and family about us”.

The company also birthed a referral system that is quite unique. It enables the users to tell their stories about their journey with PiggyVest. When the story is sent it and receives approval, they get a link that they can share with people and on social media. In this way when anyone uses their link, they get credited with rewards.

Unlike some other startups also that have had to travel to Europe of different parts of the country for investors, PiggyVest had all their investors from Nigeria. Olumide Soyombo of LeadPath Nigeria, who is one of their board members and investors introduced them to a local investor network from which a number of their investors came from.

Conclusion

PiggyVest Fintech Company has grown by leaps and bounds and has continued to diversify. They launched Investify, a service that allows for investments. The days when the technological sector was overlooked has long gone in Nigeria.

Young people are taking the bull by the horns and setting the pace for what they want to see in Nigeria. After the launch of PiggyVest, several other financial technology, and financial services companies have also been birthed and have gained traction in Nigeria today. The world indeed is for our taking, especially as young people.

 

 

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