Squirrel Away, the South African investment gifting app, has listed its own fund on the JSE Main Board. The Squirrel Away EasyETFs Balanced Actively Managed ETF, ticker SQRL, began trading on 16 September. It is managed by Squirrel Away itself and was listed through EasyETFs, part of EasyEquities, as the 12th actively managed ETF in that range.

Founder and chief executive Sibongile Maputla says the idea is to turn something families already do, giving gifts, into a habit of investing for a child's future.

The fund is a balanced portfolio with a maximum equity allocation of 60%, alongside bonds, money market instruments and property, and it complies with Regulation 28, the rules that limit risk in retirement funds. Because it is actively managed, professional managers make the investment decisions rather than tracking an index. Investors can hold it in ordinary, tax-free savings and retirement annuity accounts on EasyEquities, so it is no longer only reachable through the Squirrel Away app.

The app itself launched in May 2025 and lets parents create a profile for a child and share a link so relatives can contribute from as little as R10 for birthdays and holidays, with each gift carrying a message. When we covered Squirrel Away in September 2025, its own unit trusts and ETFs were still in the pipeline. Maputla is well placed for this step. She has more than 24 years in financial services across South Africa, the UK and the US, and was part of the leadership team at Benguela Global Fund Managers that grew it to more than R7 billion in assets within five years.

Squirrel Away was the first investment of Yenza, the venture studio of our partners Octoco, which built the app's investment platform.

The JSE welcomed the listing as giving investors access to a professionally managed, diversified portfolio through a single listed instrument. EasyEquities published an interview with Maputla and EasyETFs head David Oberholzer on why the partnership worked and what sits inside the fund.

This is a meaningful step for a young fintech. Most consumer investment apps are distribution: they sit in front of somebody else's fund and earn a thin slice. Squirrel Away now manages its own product, which changes its economics, because the fund earns a management fee on every rand invested, whether that rand arrives through the gifting app or through anyone buying SQRL on EasyEquities.

Listing also widens the market well beyond families who have downloaded the app. The lesson for founders is the sequence. Squirrel Away built the habit and the distribution first, then launched the product once it had a reason for people to buy it, and it did so through an existing listing partner rather than building fund infrastructure from scratch.

It also fits the tax-free savings angle, since the TFSA annual limit is R46,000 with a R500,000 lifetime cap, and a child's TFSA started early has the longest runway to use it.

You might also like our original piece on Squirrel Away and SA's R7bn gift problem, what SA venture exits actually return, and the JSE and TIA pilot preparing tech SMEs for investors.

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