South African fintech startup Franc has raised US$300,000 in funding over the first half of 2020 as part of a wider round of seed investment.

Launched in May 2018 by Sebastian Patel and Thomas Brennan, Franc is an investment robo-advisor that helps people who have never invested before access the best cash and equity funds in the market.

“We want to democratise access to investing by making investing easy and accessible. We want everyone to be able to create wealth and realise their dreams,” Patel told Disrupt Africa.

Having bootstrapped until now, the startup has over the last six months raised US$300,000 in seed funding as part of an ongoing round.

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

The investment will be used for further growth by Franc, which since its public launch in October of last year has had 14,000 downloads. 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.

Currently only operating in South Africa, Franc nonetheless has the ambition to expand into other African jurisdictions. Users pay an all-in fee of one per cent of investments to invest through the app.