Tappi secures  $1.5m to facilitate digital commerce business in Africa

Cynthia Ezekwe

Tappi, a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), has raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed funding round to enable SMEs manage their sales, inventory, accounting, and e-commerce operations all in one place. 

The pre-seed round was led by a number of investors, notably Mercy Corps Ventures and Chui Ventures, with participation from Digital Currency Group, SOSV, Resilience17, growX ventures, Orbit Startups and Reflect Ventures. The funding will be used to expand Tappi’s presence in its existing markets, invest in talent acquisition and brand building

Tappi was founded in 2022 by Kenfield Griffith (CEO) and Louis Majanja, to help digitise small businesses by creating an online business profile or websites for them. The platform makes it simple for small businesses to set up and manage an online profile, allowing them to display their products and services, interact with customers, and accept payments.

Speaking on the round, Griffith said, “We are grateful to be supported by great investors who share our vision and the mission to address the untapped potential within Africa’s informal SME markets, particularly in overlooked service industries such as food services, fashion, and agriculture, and health and beauty. We are eager to empower SMEs across Africa by providing them with a trusted identity online to find customers.”

Griffith stated that Tappi’s mission is to assist businesses in becoming more visible, and that the company offers an AI feature that businesses can use to create ad descriptions.

According to Griffith, the AI feature was developed to assist businesses in areas where they lack the resources to do so on their own.

“We have found that most of these businesses do not have the resources to craft their ad copies well, hence low-performing ads. So the tool permits them to input details about their business and get ad copy,” he added.

As part of its efforts to help small businesses, Tappi has partnered with MTN to enable ad purchases using airtime. Lynda Saint-Nwafor, chief enterprise business officer for MTN Nigeria, stated that the company is dedicated to supporting over 40 million MSMEs with technological solutions.