Richmond has always been passionate about technological innovation in Africa. He has a degree in Engineering from Anglia Ruskin University and a Master’s in Management and Innovation from the Queen Mary University of London. He worked as a Product Manager at L5 Lab before moving on to help the team at Helium Health to become the largest EMR provider in West Africa. Today, he leads Bamboo as CEO as they work to democratise local and foreign investment opportunities across Africa.
The idea of forming an investment company sparked when Richmond received an email from his bank, detailing a 3% interest gain on his savings. Concurrently, discussions with his friends highlighted Nigeria’s economic challenges, with a 15% inflation rate in 2018. Existing micro-savings platforms did not match the 15% inflation. Seeking alternatives, Richmond sought US stocks but faced delays and a complex KYC process from an asset manager. Adding to the hurdles was an exclusionary fee structure.
His curiosity grew as he researched various asset managers, only to find that none offered real-time access to the world’s most liquid stock market, the US stock market. This fueled Richmond’s determination to address the issue head-on and find a solution.
Bamboo officially launched in January 2020 as the first online brokerage service that gave Nigerians real- time access to global capital markets. Richmond had already quit his job a year before to start working on Bamboo with about $600k worth of funding from angel investors, family and friends.
LinkedIn profile: http://linkedin.com/in/richmondbassey
Instagram: https://instagram.com/richladss?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Richmonb?s=20
