Loyalty, offers, and reward services are a rarity in most African markets. The single economy and other factors like currency instability make it difficult to pull off such businesses in the region.
Yet, ThanksUCash, a platform created in 2018 by Networked analyzes, has managed to be successful and proves that in the business of stores, coupons and rewards not all is bleak. And to that end, the startup, which announced an undisclosed seven-digit seed last year, eventually closed the round for $ 5.3 million.
VC firms 500 Global and Unicorn Growth Capital jointly led the Lagos-based company’s seed round. The US accelerator Expert Dojo, Predictive VC, SaaS Growth Ventures, Betatron Venture Group and Accelerex Holdings were involved. Individual investors such as Andrew Dell, former CEO of HSBC, and Craig Fenton of Google UK also attended.
The company plans to use the investment to expand within its home market of Nigeria – where it operates in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja – and outside into Ghana and Kenya. The company also wants to improve its product offering and hire more staff.
For years, business-like businesses in Nigeria such as supermarkets and restaurants have been working offline, relying on bookkeeping and head-to-head knowledge to keep track of their customers’ activities in their stores. This made it difficult to offer cashback and loyalty points to customers.
Online platforms like ThankUCash provide these merchants with an opportunity to delve into rewards and help them maintain loyalty and increase sales.
CEO Simeon Ononobi started ThankUCash with Suraj Supekar, Madonna Ononobi and Harshal Gandole serving as Chief Technical Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Engineering. or.
The multi-merchant rewards platform (which means customers can switch from one merchant to another to collect loyalty points from another) allows customers to earn rewards anytime they shop at the thousands of merchants listed in the app are.
The company raised $ 320,000 pre-seed after signing the Attention the accelerator like 500 startups, Google Launchpad and other local investors like Microtraction and Ventures platform.
By this point, ThankUCash has recorded over 600,000 users and integrated over 1,000 businesses on its platform. In addition, a transaction volume of over 80 million US dollars is said to have been processed.
As a company matured, Ononobi and his team want to take on a more complicated task: building an infrastructure for companies that want to offer similar services.
“We create solutions that help SMEs to succeed and at the same time increase purchasing power and opportunities for consumers. We want to build an infrastructure for rewards, loyalty, offers, buy now, pay later, cashback, ”he told TechCrunch when he called.
“Cashback was our low hanging fruit and an entry point. We’ll still do business, coupons, gift cards, buy now, pay later, anything that will grow the business but at the same time give consumers more opportunities to buy. “
Ononobi, a serial entrepreneur who previously built a payments company and also apps for Nigerian banks and the government, believes ThankUCash will do the same to reward the same thing Flutterwave and Paystack did with payments in Africa.
Some companies such as banks have introduced cashback programs for users through debit cards in the past. But most of them have been generally inefficient from setting up to earning and redeeming points, and Ononobi argues that their inefficiency was due to lack of tech support. ThankUCash sees a gold mine to provide plugins that banks and fintechs can use to offer cashback and rewards.
ThankUCash co-founder
The thing about buy now, pay later is now fuzzy only a handful of prominent BNPL services in Africa. However, the company appears to be positioning itself for the imminent proliferation of such services, driven by similar events around the world, where buy now and pay later services will be adopted due to pandemic consumer behavior.
“The technology is such that we have our machines in the shops. So when customers request credit, we generate a code for it, customers enter it into the POS machine and the retailer receives a credit direct. The code can only be used in the selected store and only for the desired loan amount, so that the customer buys directly from the dealer at the end of the day, ”explains the founder and also mentioned that his startup could dare to buy now, to be able to pay later in the future.
ThankUCash’s consumer-centric platform will remain operational. But to get the infrastructure going, the company has signed a partnership with payment company Interswitch to get its merchants on board.
The company that too in the process Making integrations with payment gateways said some banking partnerships are in the pipeline.
In terms of how ThankUCash makes money, merchants pay the company a fee for each one to buy made in their stores. For example, ThankUCash receives a 1.5% commission for every customer it brings to the store to redeem a 5% cashback item. The Lagos-based company also takes commissions on business and plans to charge a “heavy onboarding fee” to companies that want to use its APIs for its services, including buy now and pay later.
ThankUCash has perfected an offer: the cashback product that retailers can use to attract more walk-in customers. It improves the Deals category and enables merchants to sell products quickly (through employment Ex-manager of DealDey, a defunct Nigerian trading company). And while it’s currently building its Buy Now Pay Later infrastructure (which gives businesses the ability to sell products whether or not customers have money), ThankUCash plans to add a fourth offering soon: a remittance product that merchants can sell on direct into the diaspora.
The managing director does not provide any details about this product. in the meantime, its investors who doubled in size while privy to information like this, are excited on “the company’s continuous development,” a comment from Amit Bhatti, director of co-lead investor 500 Global.
“Since we went through the 500 Global Accelerator in 2019, we have was impressed with The progress made by Simeon and the ThankUCash team in implementing a rewards system that works for Nigerian consumers regardless of cash or credit or online or offline payment, ”said the principal. “It’s also a win-win situation for companies and banks as TUC gives them the tools and data they need to grow.”
The team of 45 hired Aaron Tindisega to lead its expansion into Kenya and the East African region. The Ugandan professional has experience working for banks and technology companies such as Uber, Standard Chartered Bank and Stanbic IBTC. Kiki Anku, who has worked at Apple and some startups, will take on the task of expanding to Ghana.
