Omnibiz, a Nigerian eCommerce startup, has raised $3 million in seed funding to expand throughout West Africa
Omnibiz, a Nigerian eCommerce startup, has raised $3 million in seed funding to expand throughout West Africa
Omnibiz, a Nigeria-based Business to Business (B2B) eCommerce startup, has announced that it has raised $3 million in a seed round of funding. It intends to expand to other cities in West Africa and to take part in the Seed Stars accelerator program, among other things.
This seed round, which was led by V&R Africa, Timon Capital, and Tangerine Insurance, included investments from Launch Africa, Sunu Capital, Musha Ventures, Rising Tide Africa, and LoftyInc., among others. Seed Stars, an emerging markets investment firm based in Switzerland, also participated in the round.
A mobile application, WhatsApp, and a phone number are used to connect manufacturers of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) with local retailers. Deepankar Rustagi, the company's founder and CEO, founded Omnibiz in 2019.
Rustagi is not making his first foray into the African business world; he previously founded VConnect, a platform that helped people find local professionals in their respective fields. He believes that his previous work experience will be beneficial as he takes the reins at Omnibiz.
“We were familiar with small businesses and the types of technology they preferred. That was our area of expertise, but our business model was not successful. However, in this particular case (Omnibiz), the monetisation process is successful on our platform, and there is money to be made for the small business involved. In an interview with TechCrunch, he stated that the company has been growing at a rate of 30 percent per month for the past 12 months.
eCommerce has experienced tremendous growth in Africa, which has been fueled in part by increased internet and smartphone penetration. However, this expansion has occurred primarily in the business-to-consumer (B2C) sector. Recently, however, a slew of startups have sprung up with the goal of digitizing the retail process for B2B customers. Twiga, Trade Depot, and MaxAB are just a few of the companies that have emerged as a result of this trend.
Omnibiz employs an asset-light business model, which Rustagi believes will help the company grow more quickly. ”I don't believe that scaling in a single city with assets is that difficult. However, if you want to scale in 20, 24, or more cities in a country like Nigeria or Ghana, or the Ivory Coast, or East Africa, the investment required will be significant, and we believe that we will be able to scale much more quickly if we do not make significant investments in assets.
In Conclusion
“In addition, because we took a technology-first approach, we have excellent control over the business. “I believe we are in the right place at the right time with the right model,” says the author.
Their investors, Raj Kulasingam and Vishar Agarwal of V&R Africa, share this optimism, saying in a statement, "I believe Omnibiz will be the role model for B2B retail in Africa and will scale well into other emerging markets." We are thrilled and delighted to be assisting Omnibiz in a variety of ways other than simply providing capital.”
In addition to expanding its product categories to include alcoholic beverages and over-the-counter pharmaceutical products, the startup plans to enter the Ghana and Ivory Coast markets with this new investment.
