Stears, a Nigerian data startup, has completed a $3.3 million seed round in order to grow throughout other African nations.
Leading the round was MaC Venture Capital. Additionally participating were Serena Ventures, the Luminate Fund of the Omidyar Group, Melo 7 Tech Partners, and Cascador.
One of the 60 companies chosen for the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund 2022 batch in September 2022, Stears, intends to use the cash to further its data collection and analysis.
In order to address Nigeria’s shortage of knowledge and data-driven insights, Preston Ideh, Bode Ogunlana, Abdul Abdulrahim, and Michael Famoroti launched Stears in 2017.
The business began as a Nigerian media outlet for financial news and commentary. Now, though, it wants to focus on data in Africa.
Through a variety of content genres, including news, opinion, investigative pieces, and deep dives, its flagship subscription insights product, Stears Premium, educates the general public on subjects pertaining to business and finance, economics, government, and policy in Nigeria.
Because of the iteration of Stears Premium and the introduction of new products, Stears Pro and Stears Advisory, Stears has developed into a data and intelligence company.
Macro trends and issues like Gross Domestic Profit and inflation drives Stears Premium’s content. However, specific problems like market entry, country analysis, and the digital economy influence Stears Pro.
Stears Advisory, the product where the company assumes a consulting role and takes on outside initiatives related to its core coverage, will be put on hold as Stears focuses more on Pro and Premium.
Ideh claims that the product lacks the scalability and recurring revenue required for venture-backed companies.
The company will collaborate with international development organisations and financial institutions to create datasets that, according to Ideh, are not available elsewhere.
Stears plans to gather data, perform deep data analytics, and offer it to its business customers in several ways other than just reporting insights from the data it sources.
The company also plans to use the funding to hire data scientists, data analysts, and sector analysts.