Sabi, a Nigerian B2B platform, raises $6 million in a bridge round to accelerate its African expansion
Sabi, a Nigerian B2B platform, raises $6 million in a bridge round to accelerate its African expansion
Sabi, a Nigerian business-to-business marketplace, has raised $6 million in a bridge round.
Among those who participated in the round were Janngo Capital, Atlantica Ventures, and Waarde Capital, who served as lead investors for CRE Venture Capital.
When investors make an investment in a startup in order to assist it in obtaining additional funding, this is referred to as bridge round financing.
As a startup, Sabi was founded in 2020 with the goal of leveraging technology to help merchants (wholesalers, aggregators, distributors, and manufacturers) grow their businesses and achieve success.
Access to fulfillment, logistics, enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools, data insights, a business-to-business marketplace, and financial services are all made possible through Sabi's technology. Sabi primarily serves as a go-between for businesses and the markets in which they operate.
In a statement, Sabi's CEO, Anu Adasolum, expressed her delight at the investment.
Last year, CRE Ventures, Janngo Capital, Atlantica Ventures, and Waarde Capital invested a total of $2 million in Sabi as part of a seed round led by these investors.
Sabi's operations
Sabi was founded by Any Adalusom and Ademola Adesina.
The Sabi platform, in contrast to other B2B platforms that buy from manufacturers and then distribute, provides access to assets required across the entire value chain on a single platform from both the demand and the supply sides.
These channels include offline agents, call centers, merchant partners, supplier centers, and a mobile application, to name a few. Each stakeholder has access to tools for inventory management, sales, tracking, digital invoices, and analytics through the platform.
The one-year-old startup has already signed up 175,000 merchants and processed more than $200 million in transactions in its first year. Over 10,000 agents are employed on the platform, providing services to merchants who are members of Sabi's network.
When merchants make a sale on the marketplace, Sabi charges them a transaction fee, which is how the company makes money. Additionally, by providing loan services to them, the company generates a profit for itself.
Sabi has accomplished a great deal in less than a year, and there is still more work to be done in the future.
Nigeria's monthly growth rate of 40 percent will be replicated in other African countries such as Kenya and South Africa, according to Sabi Investment Holdings.
The company launched in Kenya just a few weeks ago and has recently hired a few new employees in South Africa, with the goal of going live in the first quarter of next year.
According to co-founder Ademola Adesina, another round of funding, dubbed the Series A, may be completed in time to fuel the company's expansion into both the United States and the United Kingdom.
A subscription model will also be introduced by Sabi, in which agents will pay a monthly fee in exchange for the ability to use the reseller platform.
Additionally, the startup intends to broaden its product offerings by providing manufacturers with visibility and data-backed insights. Further down the value chain, it intends to engage directly with stakeholders who are not currently involved.
In an interview, Pardon Makumbe, co-founder and managing partner of CRE Venture Capital, a repeat investor in Sabi, attributed the company's rapid growth to his firm's investment.
