Badili, a smartphone re-commerce firm located in Kenya, has acquired $2.1 million in pre-seed capital to expand its operations in Africa, one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone marketplaces.

The round was attended by Venture Catalysts, V&R Africa, Grenfell Holdings, and SOSV, as well as family offices and angel investors from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and India.

Badili plans to investigate new growth potential in West Africa, where it hopes to exploit an expanding demand for affordable second-hand smartphones, even as it scales its operations in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, bolstered by the fresh capital.

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“We are launching in Uganda and Tanzania and have established strong partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Within the next six months, we will be expanding to a few West African markets to get our foot in the door of some of the major markets in Africa,” said Rishabh Lawania (CEO), who co-founded the startup with Keshu Dubey (CTO) early this year.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Badili handles trade-ins and buybacks on behalf of major OEMs and phone dealers, and has already formed partnerships with major companies such as Samsung. It also purchases devices from individuals.

Badili purchases phones through its platform and a nationwide network of shops and agents. It calculates the value of the phone using its price estimation algorithm, which takes into account a variety of factors such as the phone’s age and model. The phones are completely refurbished, repackaged, and resold with a one-year warranty.

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According to Lawania, Badili collects the vendors’ information, including ID and mugshots, and also forces them to sign an affidavit saying that they are the rightful owners of the devices. Badili has also set up a system that can flag regular sellers for extra caution, he said.

According to him, Badili is currently establishing and scaling the technology, systems, partnerships, and networks required to create Africa’s most trusted and largest consumer electronics re-commerce marketplace.

Lawania said he founded the company after noticing that re-commerce did not exist in Kenya as a legitimate and trustworthy industry, despite high demand for used devices.

“One of my ex-employees in Kenya got arrested for buying a stolen phone, and it struck me that most people can’t really buy pre-owned electronics here because the only option they have is the grey market, which is risky. That is when the Badili idea kicked-in. I thought something really needs to change,” said Lawania, also the founder of Wee Media (parent company of WeeTracker news site) and gadgets in Africa.

Lawania claims that 60% of Badili customers are individuals upgrading from a feature phone to a smartphone, and that the startup’s handsets cost less than half their initial price.

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“We are providing an alternative to people who don’t want to pay full price for a device, and I am more excited about the fact that we are able to help a lot of consumers buy their first smartphone,” said Lawania.

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. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh