HAVAÍC, Futuregrowth, Launch Africa, Allan Gray E-Squared Ventures, CapaciTech, and Endeavor’s Harvest Fund have all invested in Mobiz, a South African business that integrates hyper-personalization into mobile marketing.
The funding comes as the company prepares to grow into the United States and increase its marketing, sales, and account management activities. A portion of the funds will be utilized to hire new employees in South Africa and to support the company’s commercial expansion into the United States.
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“In South Africa and Africa general, there are a lot of companies using SMS marketing, but it’s not giving any value to them because they lack digital marketing skills,”CEO Greg Chen said. “So we came to enable businesses to deliver personalized digital content via a personal landing page that can be built easily within the Mobiz platform and deliver on the SMS channel.”
Futuregrowth makes investments from its Futuregrowth Development Equity Fund, a venture capital fund devoted to supporting disruptive businesses and propositions that show strong high growth potential. The VC has previously invested in SA home services startup SweepSouth.
E Squared has also been actively investing in South Africa since 2018. The VC recently made a R9.2-million ($612k) investment in WeThinkCode, a South African edtech startup as well as a $1m seed funding round in Synatic, a data automation software startup based in Johannesburg. The VC supports Allan Gray Fellows at different stages of their business cycle. The support includes patient capital as well as post-investment assistance.
HAVAÍC has been active since 2016 investing in notable startups such as Mpost; delvv.io; Digital Cabinet; RecoMed, among others. In most cases, both HAVAÍC and Futuregrowth have participated in the same investments.
Why The Investors Invested
Investors were visibly drawn in, because of the traction the startup has generated over time. Seven years in, the company works with more than 100 brands, such as MultiChoice, Experian, HomeChoice and New Balance.
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Partner at HAVAÍC Grant Rock, an early backer of the startup, said his firm has been very impressed with Mobiz’s performance in South Africa. However, if the company expands internationally, it will need to consider pricing in order to compete with incumbents such as Textedly and TextMagic. Its monthly subscription rates start at $29 and go up depending on how many SMSs corporations and marketers want to send.
A Look At What The Company Does
Mobiz is a no-code solution that allows marketers, businesses, and small businesses to build and send SMS campaigns to their clients without having any prior marketing knowledge. CEO Greg Chen launched the company in 2014 after witnessing how businesses in South Africa struggled to effectively target and engage their clients via SMS during his 15-year career in the mobile industry.
Per data from Mobiz’s website, SMS messages delivered by the company are read within three minutes with a 98% open rate.
Mobiz is focusing on offering its service to small and medium businesses after gaining a considerable market share in the South African SMS marketing industry. The intended market, however, is the United States, not the African country where the enterprise began. The company sees potential in the small and medium business sector in the United States, according to Chen, because “its solution is easy to use and fit for the enormous market opportunity in the United States.”
“How we’ve disrupted our space in South Africa, we see an opportunity over there. So we want to help many SMBs easily produce beautiful customer engagements that are personalized at scale to make them clickable within 10 minutes on their platforms. That’s our thesis and we are very hopeful that we will work out.”
Because of the information obtained from templates used on the platform, small and medium enterprises, such as a coffee shop, can quickly learn which type of coffee 100+ clients prefer. These firms’ conversions, results, sales, and engagement rates all improve as a result of this dynamic and rapid personalization.
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The startup is launching this month, with more than 200 beta users in the United States presently using the platform.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer