Herconomy: Female-focused community and digital platform leveraging fintech to empower women
From a women-focused community on social media to a powerful community planning Africa’s largest financial services platform for women, Herconomy, is leveraging fintech to empower women and has just raised $600,000 pre-seed funding to introduce financial services and expand operations.
Herconomy is a women-focused community with the goal of enabling women for success, creating and providing opportunities in Nigeria and Africa at large. The platform has impacted over 80,000 women through capacity building, mentorship, and funding.
It is also a Fintech platform where women not only save and earn high interests, but also save as they spend, while learning more about wealth creation, and empowering themselves to financial freedom.
Women account for half of the world’s population but are faced with more hurdles in accessing financial products and services that can improve their well-being and economic empowerment. According to UNCTAD, based on the World Bank Financial Inclusion data, estimates that while 72% of men globally had a financial account in 2017, only 65% of women did – a gap of 7 percentage points.
In Nigeria, gender parity is a concern even though financial inclusion has progressed over the years. According to EfiNA, a financial sector development organisation that promotes inclusive finance in Nigeria, only 15% of women (compared to 27% of men) were banked in 2008 (a gender gap of 12 percentage points). By 2018, 33% of females were banked but the gender gap had worsened to 13 percentage points. In the Global Gender Gap Index 2020 rankings by the World Economic Forum, Nigeria ranked 128 out of 153 countries emphasizing the economic disenfranchisement of women.
Given the urgency in bridging the gender divide and enhancing the quality of life for women, policymakers and the public and private sector have continued to collaborate on many fronts.
For Herconomy, Africa’s first women-focused digital platform, changing the course of the financial exclusion narrative and underrepresentation of women in the economy will require a frontline and hands-on approach.
Formerly AGS Tribe, the female-focused organization has repositioned itself as a financial technology (Fintech) service provider to democratize economic opportunities for women and even the financial landscape. “We decided to rebrand this year to Herconomy so the essence of what we do is easily communicated,” said Ifedayo Durosinmi-Etti, the founder and CEO of Herconomy. “We understand that when the life of a woman is positively impacted, value is created not just for that woman but for the community at large.”
Following the success of her 2018 book “Accessing Grants for Startups” (which was forwarded by former Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode), Ifedayo founded the AGS Tribe due to popular demand as she kept receiving requests from people from various walks of life, including entrepreneurs and working professionals seeking to improve and build their skill sets and access global opportunities. Sensing a steep knowledge gap, the MBA degree holder decided to take a holistic approach by creating a community that would be a pan-African female-focused network.
To accommodate the growing community, the AGS Tribe was hosted on Telegram which was a fully paid community. “The time on Telegram served as a customer discovery time,” said Ifedayo. “We eventually had to migrate to our mobile application because Telegram was not as supportive and as flexible for what we wanted.”
Once their mobile app launched, they knew they wanted to reach even more women, so they introduced a free tier that gave members of their platform access to all opportunities on their platform for free. They also introduced another tier that offered up to 30% discount on various products and services. These brands ranged from sectors like fashion, travel, salons, spa and wellness, law, and hospitality so, Gold members with Visa cards enjoy services that enhance their well-being. As a result, the AGS Tribe community scaled up and the community snowballed to over 15,000 members by the middle of July 2021.
Herconomy has repositioned itself as a Fintech service provider to democratize economic opportunities for women…We understand that when the life of a woman is positively impacted, value is created not just for that woman but for the community at large.”
Ifedayo Durosinmi – Etti – Founder, Herconomy
One of the success stories of the AGS Tribe is Mobaby Care Nigeria, whose founder Mariam Adebola-Salami won a grant of $1,000 in March 2019 and another N1,000,000 in June 2019. Mariam, with the advisory support of AGS, was able to achieve a 10.5% growth in her business in ten (10) months with a customer base appreciation of over 1,000. Subsequently, Mobaby Care Nigeria was able to secure equity investment.
“Some of our members have won international grants, and in November 2021 one of our members, Confidence Stalavey, became an Obama Leader,” said Ifedayo. “Another community member of ours died in an unfortunate incident of domestic violence in June 2020 and as a community, we facilitated a fundraiser, which eventually raised over N26 million which has been placed in an FBNQuest trust fund for education for her kids.
The organization does so much to help each other as a community. Another community member successfully secured a job in the UK after attending one of its weekly capacity-building workshops.
Through the AGS Savings Challenge, over 500 women have also been able to save $100,000 cumulatively in 6 months.
Last year, they unveiled the Herconomy Cooperative Multipurpose Society, which was described as a first step on the community’s mission to owning a female-focused bank in Nigeria. To fund the expansion of Herconomy, the community embarked on its capital raising exercise.
In August 2021, Ifedayo shared plans to raise capital for Herconomy on her Insta story, and 130 people indicated interest in participating. “I had previously spoken with some investors in the past and the vision was lost on them but I knew what I wanted and trusted my community,” said Ifedayo.
In September, she sent an email to the 130 people who had indicated interest in investing in Herconomy reminding them that it was time for them to invest, and attached a google form for them could indicate their investment amount. The response was impressive, and many more people indicated interest. That list grew from the initial 130 to 509 people, but this time, with actual figures that they could commit to within the next 2 weeks. To their surprise, Herconomy recorded a massive 11.4x oversubscription and it raised US$5.7 million surpassing the US$500,000 target, within 24 hours of its capital raise exercise.
“70% of the funding we received came from our community while the rest was from Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors,” she says, adding: “Due to the minimum floor of USD$20,000 investment, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) was created to onboard members with less than USD$20,000.”
The funds, according to the organisation, will be channeled towards hiring an in-house tech team, improving on their product, increasing their marketing efforts and expanding their operations.
Some Angels who invested in Herconomy include: Nkiru Ayemere – CEO, Zephans and Co; Ehi Onwudiwe – Director, Business Transformation, Ernest and Young; Olanrewaju Smith – CEO, World Bay Technologies; Ope Makinwa – Head of Reserve, Diageo; and Ama Akpata – Co – Founder, Jand2gidi.
“I have followed the Herconomy story right from the AGS Tribe days and I have witnessed tremendous growth over the years. Not just the business, but of the founder as well. I have been a member of the community from the beginning so when the opportunity came up to invest, I certainly was interested in deepening my commitment by contributing my own token as an investor towards building a future where women thrive,” says Angel investor, Ehi Onwudiwe.
While Olu Oyinsan adds: “Our thesis is that community is very key to the future of consumer fintech in Africa. The company has a very strong community element, and also focuses on creating financial products and prosperity for women- who have historically been underserved with financial services. ”
Herconomy has also announced it would embark on additional capital raising exercises and is open to interests from investors that share the same vision of women empowerment, inclusion and diversity.