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Future Africa, a Nigerian early-stage investment fund has announced its investment in the Nigerian-founded Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) startup, Termii. Although it’s an undisclosed round, Termii CEO, Emmanuel Gbolade told Techpoint Africa that this investment is part of a bigger round which the startup will announce later.
However, given Future Africa’s previous investments, this fund could be between $50,000 and $250,000. At the launch of the fund, the plan was to back 20 startups with up to $50,000 each year for less than 11% equity. As of then, the initiative had already backed 14 founders. By Q3 2020, Iyin Aboyeji, Future Africa CEO announced investing $1 million in nine startups. According to the information on the company’s site, Termii is Future Africa’s 35th investment.
For a startup that has been around for over six years, Termii has evolved to become a platform that drives seamless communication between digital platforms and their customers. Operating a B2B2C model, the startup works through third party API integration on customer apps or websites and bills customers per message sent.
Some of the platforms using Termii’s API include Bamboo, Helium Health, Eversend, Chaka, Yassir, Paystack, ULesson, Bankly, Omnibiz, and Credpal.
Termii recently graduated as one of the winter 2020 Batch 2020 of Y Combinator, having access to a $150,000 investment in exchange for 7% equity. Before this, late 2019, the startup secured a $30,000 seed fund from Transsion-backed incubator, Future Hub, and has also made Microtraction’s investment portfolio.
While there’s no comment about what this investment goes into, Termii will probably use it to develop its infrastructure. It may soon include a two-way communication feature into its APIs where customers can respond to or even initiate conversations with businesses.
It’s interesting to see how African entrepreneurs are building investment communities that are tackling founders’ challenge around finance. A few days ago, it was Syndicate by CcHub investing in three Nigerian startups – Stears Business, OnePort365, and Taeillọ in bridge round after raising $267,500.
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