South African fintech startup Franc secures $300k in the second quarter of 2020 as part of a wider seed funding round 

South African fintech startup Franc has raised US$300,000 in seed funding over the second quarter of 2020 as part of an ongoing round.

Franc is an investment robo-advisor that helps people who have never invested before access the best cash and equity funds in the market.

The startup has an app that makes investing simple within a few minutes while no paperwork is involved. The app allows users to access, view, share, manage their portfolio as well as deposit and withdraw money from anywhere at any time.

In an interview with Disrupt Africa, Co-founder of Franc, Sebastian Patel said, “We want to democratize access to investing by making investing easy and accessible. We want everyone to be able to create wealth and realize their dreams.”

“We are still in the process of trying to raise further funding and confirming new investors as we go along. Most were committed pre-COVID, but we have also got two new investors on board in the last two months,” Patel further stated.

According to the company, the investment will be used to scale the growth of Franc.

Since it launched publicly in October of last year, the app has had 14,000 downloads. In addition, its user base has doubled in the last three months, and a total of US$160,000 has been invested through its platform so far.

Users pay an all-in fee of one percent of investments to invest through the app.

Currently, Franc operates only in South Africa but has the ambition to expand into other African jurisdictions.

Franc has some achievements so far, it was the Best South African startup at Seedstars, 2018. In 2019, it won the best SA solution at MTN App Awards. It was also voted best Financial App by Stuff Magazine in 2020.

The fintech was launched in 2018 by co-founders; Sebastian Patel and Thomas Brennan in Johannesburg, South Africa.