Nigerian data and analytics startup secures $3.3M in seed fund backed by Serena Ventures

Nigerian analytics and insights startup Stears revealed on Tuesday that Serena Williams' investment firm, Serena Ventures, had helped it raise $3.3 million in a seed round.

The Omidyar Group's Luminate Fund, Cascador, Hoaq Club, Melo 7 Tech Partners, and MaC Venture Capital were also a part of the round, which was led by MaC Venture Capital.

The new fund comes barely two years after raising $650,000 in pre-seed funding. It also received some non-dilutive capital as one of the 60 firms approved into the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund 2022 batch last month, according to TechCrunch.

The group stated that it intended to use the funding to expand into East and Southern Africa as well as to improve its data collection and analytics operations.

After announcing her retirement from tennis last month following the U.S. Open, Serena Williams said she would concentrate on investing. She added that one of the reasons she invested in Stears was not because she loved and appreciated Africa, but rather because Stears had carefully considered how to expand the "investment community on the 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,” Williams said.

Stears is a provider of financial data and analytics that charges businesses and professionals on a subscription basis for data and insight.

Preston Ideh, Abdul Abdulrahim, Foluso Ogunlana, and Michael Famoroti founded the company in 2017 after meeting while attending the London School of Economics and Imperial College in the UK.

The founders said that after realizing how challenging it was to find data-driven insights across the continent, they came together to launch an insights startup with a focus on Nigeria.

Stears launched as a media organization in Nigeria, specializing in financial news and analysis. Stears Premium, its flagship subscription insights product, educates the general populace on topics related to business and finance, economics, government, and policy in Nigeria. Its content ranges from news and opinion articles to investigative pieces and extensive analyses. Customers, especially employees of various finance-related institutions across the nation, increasingly utilized the $100/year service. Financial institutions including Sterling Bank and fintech companies like Sparkle, PiggyVest, and Paystack are among its subscribers. According to the company, its user base has doubled in size over the past year, growing mostly organically at a rate of about 6.5% per month.

Ideh, a co-founder, commented on the fundraising round and said the company is aware that worldwide professionals require its data and insight given that banks, research organizations, development companies, and investors are already using Stears' early products. In addition, the company's clientele claim that it is creating a "systemically important" firm to solve data problems across Africa.

“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 said.

The company claimed that by using publicly available macroeconomic and financial data, its proprietary datasets, and its in-depth analytical know-how, its clients can make informed decisions on African countries and markets.