Despite contributing over half of Nigeria's GDP in the last five years, millions of small and medium businesses still operate inefficiently due to dependency on manual processes.
The tide is going in a different direction. Over the last couple of months, we have seen a lot of new solutions for small business operations. One of them which says it is building the infrastructure to power online commerce and enable African small business owners to start, manage and grow their businesses from their mobile devices has raised a $4 million seed round
The company plans to use the $200,000 pre-seed to hire talent, build up its processes, and scale into new African markets.
The platform started out as a way for small business owners to come online for the first time, thanks to the work done by the platform's co-founders. The basic website builder small businesses could use without a lot of help was tailored in subsequent versions.
After gaining little traction, it was clear that Bumpa had to evolve to meet the growing demands of businesses on the platform. Both of the founding fathers were from families of small business owners, so they had a good idea of the problems.
When COVID hit in 2020, Bumpa went back to the drawing board and launched a new version of its product. Businesses can use this version to create websites in 60 seconds.
Most small businesses have been in a black hole for a long time and we are trying to find a solution to the inefficiencies they face. They don't have enough data to understand what's happening, what's being sold and how their products are being sold Many startup are trying to solve this. Our features are the basis of what is possible with Bumpa.
Small businesses in Nigeria can choose from a variety of products that can help them with their operations. There are some that include pastels, Kippa and Oz.
In August, Bumpa changed its approach to small businesses from an embedded finance platform to a retail automation company.
I don't think the ideology and direction of the company are the same. The retail automation space is where we are in and we aren't trying to be a fintech. Things that have already been solved are not being solved by us. The Meta integration is a new thing that hasn't been tested before.
Our big announcement is finally here!
Bumpa has now integrated Meta to make selling on Instagram 5x faster!
Business owners can now connect their Instagram business account with Bumpa, receive Instagram DMs directly on their Bumpa app & sell products @ Bumpa speed.#BumpaXMeta pic.twitter.com/DMRrW2HEpN
— Bumpa (@getBumpa) August 1, 2022
Merchants can connect their social media accounts to the Bumpa app and receive messages from their customers. The integration allows them to share and sell products, share invoices/receipts, record sales, store buyers' information and request payments on the Bumpa app while it reflects on their customers' social media posts. The transactions happen without the buyers and merchants leaving.
The Meta integration will bring various digital solutions essential to the daily operations of small businesses and integrate them under the social commerce and retail automation platform according to Ume Chukwuma.
There are so many different things happening in the space. Up to 10 solutions are used by a business owner. None of these solutions communicate with each other. We want to be a platform that connects on the continent. The goal is to connect all of these solutions and channels that small businesses use together with a click of a button to facilitate the transfer of information for efficiency.
That said, Bumpa would not be heading into this Herculean task blindly. It will prioritize based on orders and activities completed on the platform. For instance, what drove the Meta integration was that 40% of all the orders on Bumpa come from Instagram and WhatsApp. And in a subtle bid to bring conversational commerce to over 50,000 small businesses on its platform, the next couple of integrations will include WhatsApp, Messenger and Google My Business. The play is similar to what Charles has in Europe.
There is an app called the Bumpa.
The integrations are not free. Commissions on online transactions are the first revenue stream that Bumpa has. The company's revenues have doubled from Q2 to Q3. Since its founding, Bumpa has completed over 200,000 orders and recorded a GMV of more than $20 million.
Base10 Partners, the world's largest Black-led fund, is the lead investor in Bumpa's seed round. Plug & Play and SHL Capital are two of the investors.
OpeyemiAwoyemi said that Bumpa is doing the same thing asshopify did in North America. He said that his firm is doubling down on the social commerce platform after an initial $30,000 pre-seed check. The firm's operating partner is the Chief Operating Officer.
A principal at Base10 Partners said in a statement that Bumpa is enabling e- commerce and reducing friction for millions of small and medium-sized businesses. The more we spent time with the Opayeles, the more we realized that they have a powerful mission to build the defining e- commerce platform in Nigeria and across Africa.
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