Kenyan startup tappi raises a $1.5 million pre-seed six months after receiving $180K from SOSV’s Orbit Startups
Summary
Angel investors and advisors from global technology companies such as Google, Salesforce, Zendesk, and the financial sector contributed to the investment. The funding will support tappis mission to enable SMEs to gain visibility and credibility in the digital commerce ecosystem.Launched in 2022 by Kenfield Griffith and Louis Majanja, tappi is a Kenyan end-to-end digital commerce SaaS solution designed for small and medium-sized businesses.Previously, Griffith and Majanja founded Ajua, which provided retail, mobile, and big banks with customer experience management solutions.However, the co-founders transitioned to tappi when they realised they could serve the informal SME market on the continent.While developing Ajua, the co-founders sought to provide software tools to smaller companies. They experimented with several strategies but quickly realised that the business models significantly differed.But when they tried with smaller companies, they faced challenges, including the go-to-market strategies, the automation and simplicity requirements, the cost of acquisition, and the customer types.Due to several factors, including the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems in Kenya and Nigeria, the potential for digital growth among SMEs, and the possibility of partnering with companies such as MTN, the co-founders decided to launch tappi concurrently in both countries at the end of 2022.This simultaneous launch allowed us to immediately address the similar challenges SMEs face across different regions, setting the stage for tappis rapid growth and impact in future markets.Ajua, being a profitable enterprise, continues to thrive under the leadership of the CEO, Richard Riley. It intends to increase its on-the-ground presence by hiring direct sales agents and "capitalising on its strong 90% retention rate. "Griffith maintains that the company has grown significantly since its inception, interacting with over 150,000 customers, obtaining verified reviews on $3 million transactions, and indexing over 5,000 online pages.In conclusion, he says, Looking ahead, we plan to continue our expansion in terms of geographic reach and the range of services offered to drive more value to our customers.We are also constantly working on enhancing our technology to take SMEs into the future, ensuring that small businesses using tappi always have a competitive advantage.