Nigerian startup Simpu, a B2B SaaS platform helping brands deliver better customer engagement experiences through an omnichannel solution, has raised a US$1 million pre-seed funding round to help it expand.
Founded in 2020, Simpu makes communication and engagement software for businesses. Its 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.
Businesses can also automate workflows and connect a plethora of third party integrations, like core banking backends, databases, or marketing lists, to unify their siloed data, which can be used for precision marketing over SMS and email.
“The average online business has to combine at least eight apps daily and up to 36 apps to achieve some sync. Apps that usually don’t talk or sync well with each other,” said Collins Iheagwara, Simpu’s CEO and co-founder.
“There is also an explosion of communication apps among consumers. Consumers want to be reached on their preferred channels, posing a massive problem for businesses. We have been asked countlessly by businesses – how do they effectively communicate with their customers, clients, and friends across all the channels and apps? For us, that was the gap.”
Simpu has now raised pre-seed funding from a host of angel investors and some early-stage VCs, closing its round in January after hitting the US$1 million mark. 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.
“We make money by selling a subscription per user, billed monthly or yearly. Since coming out of closed beta in November 2021, we have hit over US$80,000 in SaaS revenues,” said Iheagwara.
“We are doubling down on features our customers love and hoping that we can grow revenues even further.”
