A new African fintech startup is positioning itself as the continent’s answer to Robinhood, promising to make cross-border investing simpler and more accessible.
Based in Gaborone, Botswana, Mystocks, which describes itself as “the Robinhood of Africa,” is building a digital platform that unites major African stock exchanges and connects them with global investors.
“Africa represents one of the last great frontiers in global investing,” said Scanlon Botha, the company’s chief operating officer.
“Mystocks solves the problems of fragmentation and high entry barriers by offering seamless access to multiple African exchanges within a single platform, bringing African companies and assets to Wall Street and retail investors globally.”
By integrating exchanges in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana and Egypt, using artificial intelligence for personalized investment insights, and enabling stablecoin transactions for fast, low-cost payments, the startup hopes to open African markets to millions of local and international investors.
What Is Mystocks and How It Works
Mystocks is designed as a one-stop gateway for anyone wanting to buy or sell African stocks, bonds and other assets. Instead of dealing separately with different exchanges across the continent, users can trade through a single digital account.
The platform uses AI-driven tools to offer tailored investment recommendations and predictive analytics.
“Our AI-powered tools will deliver personalised recommendations, predictive analytics and risk-based insights tailored to each investor,” Botha explained, adding that this will help users “make smarter and more confident decisions.”
Founding and Funding Story
While Mystocks has not publicly disclosed its full funding details, the company’s leadership says it has secured seed backing from a small group of African and international venture capital firms keen on tapping Africa’s rapidly growing financial technology market.
According to a 2024 report, African fintech attracted over $1.5 billion in venture funding last year, underscoring strong investor appetite.
Botha hinted that Mystocks is currently closing its pre-Series A round and aims to expand engineering and market operations in Lagos and Nairobi by early 2026.
Big Picture for African Markets
Africa’s stock and bond markets remain fragmented and relatively small compared with other regions.
The African Securities Exchanges Association estimates that combined market capitalization across the continent’s exchanges was around $2.3 trillion in 2024, with South Africa accounting for more than half.
Yet retail participation is limited. Mystocks wants to change that by integrating key exchanges and easing cross-border investing.
“We’re not just building a platform; we’re creating a bridge for global capital to flow into African growth stories,” Botha said.
Stablecoins to Cut Costs
A key innovation is Mystocks’ use of stablecoins, cryptocurrencies tied to the U.S. dollar or other stable assets, for deposits and withdrawals. This eliminates high foreign exchange costs and speeds up cross-border payments.
“Stablecoin integration is a critical step toward unlocking both local participation and global capital inflows,” Botha noted.
The company believes this will make investing affordable even for small retail investors who have been deterred by high fees and long settlement times.
Tokenizing African Bonds
Beyond stocks, Mystocks is exploring the tokenisation of African government and corporate bonds, which often suffer from low liquidity. By turning these bonds into blockchain-based tokens, the platform hopes to make trading easier and more transparent.
African bond markets are estimated to be worth over $500 billion, but access for individual investors remains limited.
“This could unlock one of Africa’s largest yet least accessible asset classes,” Botha said.
Mystocks’ ambition is clear: to democratize investing across the continent.
“Whether you are a young professional in Lagos, a farmer in Nairobi, or a retail investor in New York, Mystocks will provide the tools, insights and seamless infrastructure to invest in Africa’s growth story.”
Botha said, underscoring the company’s bid to bring Africa’s financial markets to a global audience.
Talking Point
Mystocks’ vision to create a unified, AI-driven investment gateway for Africa is both ambitious and timely, but its success will hinge on navigating the continent’s deep structural and regulatory complexities. Africa’s combined market capitalization of about $2.3 trillion may sound enticing, yet liquidity is uneven, data quality varies sharply across exchanges, and investor protections differ from country to country, all of which could complicate a seamless cross-border platform.
The planned use of stablecoins and tokenized bonds addresses long-standing frictions, high forex costs, slow settlement, and limited access to sovereign debt, but also introduces exposure to cryptocurrency volatility and evolving global rules on digital assets.
Moreover, AI-powered recommendations can empower small investors, but they demand strong safeguards around transparency, bias, and cybersecurity to avoid turning convenience into systemic risk.
If Mystocks can secure regulatory buy-in from key financial hubs like Lagos, Nairobi, and Johannesburg, maintain compliance with global anti-money-laundering standards, and build the trust needed for large institutional inflows, it could meaningfully broaden Africa’s investor base and channel capital toward local growth.
Without those foundations, however, the platform risks becoming another well-branded fintech experiment constrained by the very fragmentation it hopes to solve.
