Nigerian startup Peppa is making it safer to shop online in Africa, with a focus on social buying and selling, via a payment protection scheme that means buyers are protected from fraud and sellers are protected from losses that come from cancelled orders.
Founded in September 2021, though conceived of much earlier, Peppa allows users to safely and seamlessly makes payments for purchases on social commerce platforms.
“We spotted the increasing cases of money losses due to ghost-sellers – who get paid but never deliver goods – from cases reported online,” said Banky Alao, co-founder and CEO of Peppa.
“While 70 per cent of people aged between 18 and 45 start their shopping on social platforms, the lack of a safety net for cases where the seller does not deliver goods has discouraged many from shopping on these social platforms.”
Alao said uptake has been “very exciting”.
“We already had 3,000 buyers on our app even without publicly launching the product,” he said. “Our verified seller count stands at 1,500 today while we have distribution partnerships with the continent’s leading mobile money operator and a leading bank in Nigeria.”
Peppa is one of the 12 startups chosen for the ARM Labs Lagos Techstars Accelerator, a Lagos-based programme focused on building early-stage prop-tech and fintech startups across Africa, and is currently raising a pre-seed round of funding. This will help the startup scale across Nigeria and launch in its first new market, Uganda.
“We make money from transaction fees paid when payments to sellers are made in addition to subscription fees earned from sellers,” said Alao.
