Nigerian startup Dukka has developed a digital ecosystem that enables emerging market commerce by helping retailers to automate daily operations, accept payments and gain insights into performance.
Founded in 2020, with its demo app built during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dukka provides simple technology that helps individuals and small businesses to manage their money better.
From automating simple daily operations like capturing sales, managing inventory, generating e-invoices and e-receipts, to accepting any form of digital payment of customers choosing, to gain deep insights into how their business is performing, all from a simple application installed on smartphones or through use of Dukka Terminals.
“Be it a solopreneur, or a mid-size business with staff and multiple locations, Dukka’s technology turns anyone into a merchant,” Keturah Ovio, Dukka’s CEO, told Disrupt Africa.
“Our ecosystem allows anyone to pay and be paid, manage inventory, track sales and expenses across one or multiple locations, gain micro insights on business performance, and sell online. Consumers are able to securely discover, shop, and spend on vetted merchants.”
Ovio said she had learned about the untapped and underserved market opportunity that exists in the small business landscape in Africa prior to launching Dukka. Micro, small and medium businesses (MSMEs) constitute 90 per cent of all businesses, and they are the largest employer.
“Yet they struggle or stagnate within the first two years of operation, for a number of reasons – poor infrastructure, access to finance, low technology adoption, multiple taxation, poor business management skills, no clear insights on costs and revenue centres… the list goes on and on,” she said.
“They have immense opportunity to grow and scale at a minimum of 4x their current growth rate, but they are unable to. This is because they haven’t been equipped with the right tools and resources.”
Dukka provides these tools, as do a number of other ventures, but Ovio believes the scope of Dukka’s offering sets it apart.
“Dukka provides an embedded platform solution that caters to all a business needs to thrive – point of sales and payments for streamlined operations, business performance insights for better decision making, and access to capital and online discoverability for growth opportunities,” she said.
Self-funded initially, the startup has raised capital from a number of angels and VCs, just shy of US$1.5 million to date. Ovio said it is in the process of closing a round, but adds that Dukka is already able to cover its operating costs from cash flows.
“It’s been a heck of a ride in such a short time,” she said. “We’ve seen over 100,000 users onboarded onto our platform, with over 90,000 users of our software in Nigeria. We beta-launched our payments infrastructure solution in the second half of 2023 to a couple of hundred customers who really helped us define and figure out our pricing model and refine our monetisation strategy.”
That strategy involves a blend of transaction fees, saas fees, services, and terminal device sales. Dukka has also secured distribution through partnerships, and has 1.25 million customers profiled and waiting to be onboarded onto its ecosystem. It is planning on expanding into two new markets before the end of 2024.
