Sukhiba Connect, a burgeoning social commerce startup, has garnered significant attention due to its innovative approach to bridging the gaps in the social commerce market in Africa. This forward-looking company recently secured $1.5 million in seed funding, led by CRE Ventures and joined by notable investors such as Antler, EQ2 Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Chandaria Capital, and several angel investors.
The investment amount of $1.5 million serves as a testament to the potential of Sukhiba Connect’s vision. Notably, the primary intendment behind this funding is to support the expansion of Sukhiba Connect beyond its native Kenya. The startup aims to capitalize on the burgeoning popularity of WhatsApp in Africa, especially in countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria, where WhatsApp has become the default messaging channel for mobile users.
Sukhiba Connect’s mission is to transform the social commerce landscape by streamlining the end-to-end buying experience on WhatsApp. It offers businesses a B2B conversational commerce tool that empowers them to connect with customers, manage orders, accept local payment methods like M-Pesa, and provide a seamless shopping experience directly within the WhatsApp platform. This approach aims to enable businesses, especially manufacturers and distributors, to serve a vast network of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), including retailers, within their ecosystem.
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Why the Investors Invested:
The decision to invest in Sukhiba Connect is underpinned by several compelling reasons. In the first place, WhatsApp’s widespread adoption in African countries, coupled with its robust user base, provides a unique opportunity for businesses and customers to connect easily. However, while WhatsApp has some commerce-related features, it lacks the comprehensive functionality required to facilitate seamless transactions. Sukhiba Connect aims to bridge these gaps in functionality and localization, thus opening up an untapped market.
Again, Sukhiba Connect addresses the critical aspect of trust in African commerce. African customers heavily rely on trust, which is often built through relationships, especially between salespeople and retailers. Sukhiba Connect’s innovation is not about replacing these relationships but enhancing them. By introducing features that enable businesses to assign sales routes and offer tailored in-app support, the startup ensures that the trust-building relationships remain intact while facilitating efficient transactions.
Furthermore, the potential for using WhatsApp as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, with features such as routing, sales staff management, view mapping, and monitoring, presents a substantial value proposition for businesses. This comprehensive approach to B2B commerce, coupled with its adaptability for B2C commerce, has garnered investor interest.
A Look at Sukhiba:
Sukhiba Connect, co-founded in 2021 by Ananth Gudipati (CEO) and Abhinav Solipuram (CTO), began its journey as a community commerce platform that aggregated orders from buyers and facilitated bulk purchases from manufacturers. However, the company pivoted in the middle of 2022, shifting its focus to conversational commerce.
Sukhiba Connect’s primary market is Kenya, where WhatsApp usage is exceptionally high, making it the de facto messaging platform for mobile users. As it expands, the startup is eyeing other African markets, including Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria, all of which exhibit substantial WhatsApp adoption and commerce potential.
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The core of Sukhiba Connect’s offering is its B2B conversational commerce tool, which empowers businesses to conduct transactions, manage orders, and engage with customers directly through WhatsApp. It caters to major manufacturers and distributors, enabling them to serve a broad network of MSMEs, including retailers.
In conclusion, Sukhiba Connect is at the forefront of transforming social commerce in Africa, leveraging the ubiquity of WhatsApp and innovative software solutions to address the unique needs of the market. With recent funding and a strategic vision, the startup is poised to reshape the social commerce landscape in the region.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard