
While companies are being acquired like our recent news on Payday, Tappi has just raised the sum of $1.5 million in their pre-seed round with the objective of scaling in Nigeria and Kenya. Tappi is a startup that basically enables SMEs (Small and Medium-Sized Businesses) and Small Business Owners to place adverts using airtime.
Tappi reduces the stress of creating and managing an online business profile for SMEs. They allow these SMEs to showcase their products and services, interact with customers, and accept payments.
This pre-seed round was led by Mercy Corps Ventures and Chui Ventures, other groups like Digital Currency Group, growX ventures, Orbit Startups, SOSV, and Reflect Ventures also participated in the round. Angel investors and advisors from global tech companies, such as Google, Salesforce, and Zendesk also took part.
It is not news that SMEs are the drivers of the African economy contributing about 50% to the continent’s GDP and employing over 80% of the total workforce. Although these businesses face various challenges one of which might be digitizing their business to leverage profits from the Internet.
Tappi which was founded in 2022 by Kenfield Griffith (CEO) and Louis Majanja can help these businesses by creating an online business profile and website for them.
Currently, Tappi only partners with MTN to ensure that small business owners can purchase ads using airtime. This minimizes the issue businesses face while trying to pay for ads with their credit cards.