East Africa’s fast-evolving retail investment market has taken a decisive step toward institutionalisation after Ndovu launched a new multi-asset fund designed to give ordinary investors access to global-grade portfolios once reserved for the wealthy.
The Nairobi-based fintech, founded in 2021, unveiled the Kibaba Multi-Asset Special Fund, marking what its leadership describes as a structural shift in how Africans engage with wealth creation moving from basic savings to diversified, regulated investment strategies.
“Five years ago, we had a simple but radical belief: every East African deserves access to the same investments as the world’s wealthiest,” said Radhika Bhachu, Co-founder and CEO at Ndovu. “Not savings accounts. Not mattress money. Real, diversified, global wealth.”
The launch comes at a moment of rapid expansion in Kenya’s capital markets. According to Ndovu, the country’s Collective Investment Scheme (CIS) market has grown by more than 1,100 per cent in six years, reflecting a profound shift in retail investor behaviour. Rising financial literacy, mobile penetration and fintech adoption are driving a new class of investors seeking higher returns and more sophisticated products.
“Kenyans have outgrown the savings account,” Bhachu said. “They’re financially aware, increasingly sophisticated and hungry for smarter returns.”
Kibaba is positioned to capture that demand. Structured within Kenya’s regulated capital markets framework, the fund offers multi-asset exposure, combining different asset classes under a single portfolio with institutional-level design principles. The model emphasises diversification, disciplined risk management and rigorous analysis, features typically associated with pension funds and large asset managers.
“Institutional-grade. Built for everyone,” Bhachu said, underscoring the company’s attempt to democratise access to complex financial instruments.
The fund is built on what Ndovu describes as four “non-negotiables,” which are safety, compliance, responsible returns and transparency, a framework the company says underpins its entire operating model. The emphasis on regulation and governance reflects growing scrutiny of fintech-led investment platforms across Africa, where regulators are tightening oversight amid rising retail participation.
Ndovu’s leadership also points to its internal capabilities as a differentiator.
“None of this happens without a team that has truly gone to war with me,” Bhachu said, citing experience drawn from institutions including BlackRock, Oracle, the Nairobi Securities Exchange and the Capital Markets Authority Kenya.
The launch highlights a broader continental trend where the convergence of fintech innovation and capital markets reform. Across Africa, digital investment platforms are lowering entry barriers, allowing retail investors to participate in equities, bonds and alternative assets with relatively small amounts of capital. Analysts say this shift is critical in a region where traditional wealth-building tools such as savings accounts often fail to keep pace with inflation or deliver meaningful returns.
Ndovu’s strategy is rooted in a wider ambition to reshape financial behaviour.
“Our mission is unchanged: to move every African from a consumption mindset to an ownership mindset,” Bhachu said. “Kibaba is the next chapter. We are just getting started.”
The implications extend beyond Kenya. With Africa’s middle class projected to expand and fintech adoption accelerating, platforms offering regulated, diversified investment products are expected to play a central role in mobilising domestic capital, long seen as a missing piece in the continent’s development puzzle.
For African entrepreneurship, the significance is structural. By enabling individuals to invest rather than simply consume, such platforms create new pools of capital that can be reinvested into businesses, infrastructure and innovation ecosystems. In effect, they transform consumers into stakeholders in the continent’s economic growth.
As global investors increasingly look to Africa for growth opportunities, initiatives like Ndovu’s Kibaba fund signal a parallel shift from within, a new generation of African-led financial platforms building the infrastructure for inclusive, scalable wealth creation.
In a market long defined by exclusion, Africa’s investment landscape is no longer catching up. It is being rebuilt from the ground up.
