A startup that provides a hybrid sales product to micro and small merchants in South Africa has raised over a million dollars in seed funding.
The round was led by E4E Africa, a South African venture capital firm.
The investment will be used for app development, new hires, and hardware production.
Merchants can send and receive payments with the company's hardware, which is a low-cost phone. Merchants can sell value-added services such as data and pay-TV subscriptions, groceries and clothing with the help of the platform's software. Qwili's phones cost between $60 and $70, according to Luyolo Sijake.
Qwili's target audience are unbanked. Micro and small merchants can use the company's mobile app to sell goods and value-added services.
Qwili was launched by Sijake and his co- founders. Individual users who used the platform's digital wallet to buy value-added services were the ones who were sold the devices. As users operated the phone and Qwili took a piece of every transaction, the phone would eventually commercialize itself, and users could buy them off Qwili. The pivot to merchants was made because that didn't work.
There wasn't high enough adoption of the digital services during those early stages. The chief executive said that people started using the digital wallet to sell things to people around them. They started using the phone in a way we didn't think was right. The agent model is where people use the device and the software to sell to other people.
The image is called Qwili.
Qwili sold a lot of phones before the pivot. The business-to-business model has picked up steam as 500 micro and small merchants use it. A typical business customer is a seller who doesn't have a storefront that sells digital products. Buying a point-of-sale device with limitedFunctionality doesn't make economic sense for this category; in contrast, aSmartphone where they can collect payments and advertise products overWhatsApp suffices
Sijake said that Qwili doesn't profit from selling phones as it's just a way to impact merchants that use the platform. It takes a commission on all applications. He said that they want to enable people who are currently digitally excluded to participate in the various forms of value that being digitally included has to offer. Access to the mobile internet is too expensive due to the fact that a reliable qualitysmartphone is too expensive. We hope to keep making phones at a low price.
Qwili says that agents on the platform have access to an alternative source of income through the commission they earn on sales made through Qwili. Customers of these agents see time, efficiency and financial barriers between them and the services they need minimized The providers of value-added services have made it easier to get into the market. The funding allows Qwili to increase the pace at which it scales its operation in order to see its effect grow.
Qwili processes $75,000 a month from its 500 merchants. The South African platform, which saw strong turnover growth of over 300% from Q1 to Q2 of 2022, will be able to reach $1 million from 3,000 merchants by the end of the year.
Qwili is both high impact and highlyScalable, that's what we think. Qwili agents love the entrepreneurial opportunity that Qwili provides them while giving their community access to e- commerce and fairly priced goods and services. The business model of Qwili is a good fit with E4E Africa's aim to support diverse founders in creating a thriving, innovative, and inclusive Africa.
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