Investor Updates: Nigerian customer engagement startup Simpu raises $1m pre-seed

Nigerian customer engagement startup Simpu raises $1m pre-seed

Highlights

• Nigerian startup Simpu, a B2B SaaS platform helping brands deliver better customer engagement experiences through an omnichannel solution, has raised a $1 million pre-seed funding round to help it expand.
• Founded in 2020, Simpu makes communication and engagement software for businesses. 
• The startup’s flagship product is a lego-flexible omnichannel inbox for teams, which unifies communication channels like email, WhatsApp, Twitter direct messages, Facebook Messenger, SMS, and website live chat, into one fantastic experience.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

Simpu’s pre-seed funding comes from a host of angel investors and some early-stage VCs. The startup has over 90 businesses on its platform, with over 300 active users, but is preparing for a full launch in May. Active in Nigeria for now, the startup has a few international customers already and plans to expand internationally eventually. The startup makes money by selling a subscription per user, billed monthly or yearly. Since coming out of closed beta in November 2021, it has hit over $80,000 in SaaS revenues.

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Egyptian health-tech Rology closes pre-Series A round

Highlights

• Egypt-based health-tech Rology has closed a pre-Series A round from Egypt Ventures, Sequence Ventures, Waseel, Tawaref, and Viktoria Ventures, alongside previous investors. The amount raised was not disclosed.
• Founded in 2017 by Amr AboDraiaa, Mahmoud Eldefrawy, Moaaz Hossam, and Bassam Khallaf, Rology is an on-demand teleradiology platform that delivers reports within 12 hours or in 60 minutes for emergency cases.
• The investment will be used to fuel Rology’s expansion plans in the Middle East and Africa region. 

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

Startups like Rology are crucial to the African economy and it’s a positive development to see investors back health-tech players. The region’s healthcare industry has for decades been plagued with several challenges that prevent universal access. Importantly, increasing investor backing for startups shows one of Africa’s most crucial socio-economic problems can be tackled without forgoing returns.

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MTN mobile money gets banking license in Nigeria

Highlights

• MTN Nigeria, the Nigerian arm of Africa’s largest telecom, today received final approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria to run a payment service bank.
• With this approval, MTN Nigeria can provide virtually all the services offered by conventional commercial banks with the exception of granting credit and processing foreign exchange transactions.
• This announcement follows a previous approval in principle granted in November 2021, to Airtel Africa Plc and MTN Nigeria Communications Plc to operate a payment service bank in the country.

Source: The Paypers

Our Takeaway

Despite being home to the largest unbanked population in Africa, Nigeria lags behind its peers when it comes to mobile money adoption, compared to countries like Ghana and Kenya, where leading telcos MTN and Safaricom, respectively, have driven exponential growth in penetration over the years. MTN’s approval in Nigeria is thus expected to spur the adoption of mobile money in the country, and although it poses a significant threat to other fintech players, particularly agency banks, Nigerians stand to benefit from the proliferation of digital financial services.