Cowrywise

Cowrywise built its name on a simple pitch: take the mutual fund and structured savings products that used to be reserved for wealthy clients of traditional asset managers and put them on a phone for ordinary Nigerians. Founded in 2017 by Razaq Ahmed and Edward Popoola, the company came out of Ahmed's time as an investment analyst at Meristem, where he watched existing wealth managers build products that only made sense for a small, wealthy client base.

That approach earned Cowrywise a regulatory distinction early on: in 2021 it became the first fintech company in Nigeria to receive a Fund/Portfolio Management licence from the Securities and Exchange Commission, letting it manage pooled investor funds directly rather than through a third-party trustee. By the middle of 2026, the company said it had passed 800,000 users.

The past year has been about widening what users can actually do on the app. In mid-2025, Cowrywise announced it would let customers buy and sell shares directly on the Nigerian Exchange through a new Stocks feature, putting it in more direct competition with dedicated trading apps like Bamboo and Chaka. According to its Google Play listing, the stock product now covers more than 140 companies listed on the exchange.

On the leadership side, co-founder and CEO Razaq Ahmed was elected president of CFA Society Nigeria in March 2025. Compared with the larger, more heavily funded fintechs on this list, Cowrywise has grown deliberately rather than dramatically, staying focused on a single market and a specific niche: making mutual funds and, more recently, stocks, accessible to Nigerians who were previously locked out of formal investment management.