Herconomy is a startup that empowers women by providing opportunities for employment, networking, mentoring and financial services. Securing $600,000 of funding will enable the platform to expand the number of products it is able to offer its community.
The pre-seed round was led by venture capital firm, Oui Capital, and a crop of angel investors from Herconomy’s community, which includes: Ehi Onwudiwe, Director, Business Transformation, Ernst & Young; Nkiru Ayemere, CEO Zephans & Co; Ope Makinwa, Head of Reserve, Diageo; Ama Akpata, co-founder, Jand2Gidi; and Olanrewaju Smith, CEO, World Bay Technologies. Herconmy plans to channel the funds towards hiring an in-house tech team, improving on their products, increasing their marketing efforts and expanding their operations.
A paper in the Journal of Business and Socio-economic Development reports that there are more male wage earners (65.67%) than female wage earners (34.33%) in Nigeria. When Durosinmi-Etti found out about this disparity, she made it her mission to fill the gap and rectify the challenge faced by women. What started as a book with numerous resources, temporarily found a home on Instagram before finally transforming into a fully stacked digital platform. Building a women-focused community on social media enabled Herconomy to leverage financial technology to empower women by designing a platform that promotes opportunities.
The disruption caused by the pandemic inspired the founders of Herconomy to launch an app. This in turn resulted in the establishment of a job’s board. It also helped Herconomy secure a partnership with Amazon, making the platform the first recruitment partner in Nigeria for their EU region. The women-focused platform is changing the narrative of financial exclusion by focusing on society’s largest marginalised group.
When Durosinmi-Etti explained what fuels her passion for the vision behind Herconomy, she told TechCabal, “I just wanted to create a place where women could get access to opportunities, grants and fellowships.”