Serena Williams’ Serena Ventures has helped Stears, a Nigerian financial data and insights company, raise $3.3 million in a seed round. The investment is in line with her post-retirement plans after she announced her retirement from tennis last month.
MaC Venture Capital led the seed round, which included Melo 7 Tech Partners, Omidyar Group’s Luminate Fund, Cascador, and Hoaq Club.
“One of the reasons I invested in Stears is not because of my love and appreciation for Africa, but because Stears has strategically thought of how to increase the investment community on the continent,” she was quoted by Bloomberg.
“Better and more transparent business and financial data is expected to lead to more investment on the African continent. Stears has shown a deep appreciation of the complexities involved in solving this problem for global professionals. Through a combination of technology and data, Stears is well placed to leverage the massive data opportunity on the continent,” she added.
Preston Ideh, Abdul Abdulrahim, Foluso Ogunlana, and Michael Famoroti founded the company in 2017. They met in the United Kingdom at the London School of Economics and Imperial College.
Businesses and professionals can subscribe to the startup’s data and insights. According to the founders, the company was founded in response to difficulties in obtaining data-driven insights on the African continent. The company’s primary market is Nigeria.
Stears is a rare subscription success story in a country where subscription services are scarce, according to Bloomberg. According to the company, its user base has increased by approximately 6.5% month on month.
“Enterprise customers make up more than 75% of revenue, up from 45% in 2021. The company said its revenue in the first half of 2022 surpassed that for all of 2021,” Bloomberg reported.
Premium Times Nigeria reports that the company plans to use the seed round to enhance its data collection and analytics capabilities, talent acquisition and expansion to East and Southern Africa.
“We know global professionals need our data and insight because banks, research firms, development organizations, and investors are already using our early products. Our customers tell us we are building a ‘systemically important’ company to address Africa’s data problem,” co-founder Ideh said about the funding round.
“Globally, information providers like Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters have built data powerhouses, which act as information gateways to Western markets. We are executing an African version of this model, focused on the often missing, outdated, or poorly digitized African datasets needed by operators, finance and policy professionals, researchers, and even regulators,” he added.
Last month, Stears was among 60 startups that got accepted into the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund 2022 cohort.