Senegalese startup Weebi has launched a digital solution helping Dakar shopkeepers with bookkeeping, looking to prevent financial impacts when paper ledgers are damaged or lost.
Weebi has designed a point of sale (PoS) solution made out of aluminium with a 3D printer within. It comes pre-installed with a 3G Android tablet integrating the Weebi app.
“We spotted a big pain point for shopkeepers wasting time computing accounts and afraid of losing bookkeeping figures. We also spotted a problem for clients that shop regularly and dispute the amount owed or due,” co-founder Pierre Gancel told Disrupt Africa.
“We thus designed the Weebi box, a digital app embarked in a shielded tablet, to solve this problem.”
The app works offline and provides confidential backup, allowing shopkeepers to quicken client registration, ease invoicing and print tickets. The startup sold its 10th solution this month and is now looking for funding to scale up.
Weebi also provides a live data analysis tool – the Weebi Bot – allowing shopkeepers to better monitor business activity. It is also gathering its first streams of Dark Data – streams of concealed information collected to improve a service.
“Weebi provides us with an entry point to collect such data from local business owners and their clients,” Gancel said.
The startup has been self-financed so far but is looking to raise funding over the next few months. Its initial focus is on Dakar but it plans to run pilots in other West African capitals in the near future.
“Our goal is to reach 1,000 shops in Senegal, thus solving a big pain point for shopkeepers and their customers; while gathering a vast amount of data. This would provides us and our partners with greater insight on the economic situation and the consumption of 50,000 Senegalese households,” Gancel said.
