Nigerian startup SendChamp is providing communication APIs and customer relationship management tools to developers and businesses, helping them reach their customers via different messaging channels.
Founded by Goodness Kayode and Damilola Olotu, SendChamp aims to improve customer relations for technical and non-technical business owners.
The startup’s APIs allow users to deliver messaging across multiple channels, including SMS, WhatsApp, Email, and voice. The CRM solution, on the other hand, allows both developers and non-technical staff members to manage customer relations more effectively.
SendChamp began life in January 2021, but remained in stealth mode for most of the year. Going public in December, the startup had already worked with businesses such as TeamApt, Bumpa, Selar, Flux and Edves to reach and engage customers, helping these companies power over four million messages to more than 300,000 customers.
“Many African businesses have it hard to communicate with their customers via messaging channels of their choice due to the dominance of single-channel messaging platforms, poor delivery by some existing providers and global solutions often have restricted use in most African countries,” Kayode said.
In fact, this is a US$4 billion plus market, growing at 27 per cent year-on-year, so unsurprisingly SendChamp has its competitors, both on the continent in the form of Termii and Africa’s Talking, and internationally in the shape of Telynx.
“For Africa-based players, their focus is only on highly technical users. They do not have a customer relationship management tool for non-technical users. They are also very manual when it comes to integrations. However, SendChamp is building for technical and non-technical users,” said Kayode.
“For foreign-based communication platforms like Telynx, they have restricted use in most African countries and also poor deliverability due to local regulations, and to cap it all, customers cannot pay in their local currencies. SendChamp is solving this by deepening integrations in these African countries to solve delivery issues due to regulations and restrictions of messaging services in many/most African countries.”
The startup believes, then, that it has an edge, and nonetheless Kayode says the market is big enough for a number of players. SendChamp comes to the field armed with funding, too, having banked a US$100,000 angel round in December. The round saw participation from local angel syndicates such as DFS Lab, Hustler Capital, HoaQ Club and Velocity Digital, and angel investors including Prosper Otemuyiwa, Samson Goddy, Merijn Campsteyn, Ayo Arikawe, and Lanre Ogungbe.
SendChamp intends to use the raised capital to deepen product development and expand its team, while it also recently expanded its presence to Kenya. Kayode said it won’t stop there.
“Our service is not restricted by borders, so we hope to be live in a couple more African countries in the next few months,” he said.
