Faces behind Kwaba, low-income rent payment platform that secured $10m fund
Kwaba may sound like a strange name for many, but it has become popular with investors. It is a rent payment platform that helps low-and middle-income earning Nigerians to pay their house rents in convenient instalments.
“We don’t see the sense in paying rent yearly when salaries are paid monthly. With Kwaba, say ‘goodbye’ to paying landlords one to two years’ rent in advance and ‘hello’ to the new school where you can spread your rent payment over six to 12 months,” Kwaba says on its website.
This innovation, perhaps, drove Ingressive Capital, a venture capitalist, to invest $10 million in the start-up in early November 2020. The platform had earlier this year secured $20,000 in the LABS by ARM accelerator programme.
Uwem Uwemakpan, director of fund pperations at Ingressive Capital, said after making the investment that “by investing in Kwaba, we are helping the banked and the unbanked in Nigeria to have access to loans and credits that would give them a better life.”
Uwemakpan said COVID-19 had financially impacted lots of Nigerians negatively and there had been a surge in the need for credit.
“We are glad that we can help make people’s lives a little better and provide shelter indirectly through Kwaba. We are glad to be a part of this innovation changing the housing industry in Nigeria.”
Kwaba says it helps to reduce homelessness, financial hardship and improve financial well-being of Nigerians.
The start-up was set up by Obinna Molokwu, who describes himself as a “passionate and performance-driven product manager with experience
leading cross-functional teams to plan, build, launch and manage fast growing apps.” He is also the founder of RentCrowdy, described as a peerto-peer lending platform for rental financing in Africa.
Jadesola Opawumi is the co-founder and also serves as the CCO of the platform. She is also the co-founder and CEO of Spredda, an an online marketplace. A serial entrepreneur, she is likewise the co-founder of Payqart, a financial technology firm focused on providing consumer financing both online and in-store.
“I think I am slowly becoming a serial entrepreneur. Over the years, my passion has largely revolved around fintech and e-commerce,” she told Businessday in September 2020.
“I love doing start-ups. The work is very challenging, diverse and rewarding. I have gained extensive experience in varios aspects of lending, covering areas such as product development, loan origination, underwriting, loan structuring and collections,” she said.
On his part, Molokwu believes that Kwaba is targeted at changing the aproach to rent payment by harnessing the power of financial technology and the Internet to solve the bulk rent system of payment in Nigeria. “During our business validation phase, in four weeks, we had over 1,500 renters requesting rental financing of up to N300 million,” Molokwu said in 2019. “This led to the development of our new userfriendly app,” he further said.
Kwaba confirmed to Businessday in 2019 that renters employed the services of Kwaba through its app to help pay their rents so that they could pay back in monthly convenient instalments.
Kwaba has moved into a critical area in Nigerians’ lives, with data showing that the country’s housing gap is over 17 million annually. Many Nigerians live in shanties as they are unable to afford bulk rent.
With an increasing urban population of 4.6 percent growth rate per annum and the economc slump, renting has become more expensive and elusive for many Nigerians.
Molokwu said Kwaba is looking to bridge the gap betweeen property and finance and redefine impact with product offering.