Nigerian startup SAVA is a growth engine and partner that originally provided growth services to African startups and enterprises, but has since pivoted into a sales tech solutions provider with a suite of products in sales tech, travel, fashion and gaming.
SAVA has built a sales tech solution that helps businesses drive revenue through offerings like app store optimisation, user retention, the brand moat, and conversion rate optimisation, among others.
“We are about to launch an automated “expansion” product that allows African companies to register and start operating in the US market within just two weeks,” founder Segun Adeyemo told Disrupt Africa.
Additionally, SAVA is developing its own proprietary products in travel, fashion and gaming that will all roll out before the end of 2024.
“Our vision is to build market-leading tech solutions tailored for the African market,” said Adeyemo.
Though founded in August 2022, SAVA did not kick off operations until that October, when it landed its first client, the Nigerian food delivery startup FoodCourt, for which it acquired 30,000 new registered customers and generated 62,000 new app installations.
“Many African companies were not adequately focused on driving sales growth and monetization for their products and services. SAVA’s automated sales solutions uniquely fill this gap for the African market,” Adeyemo said.
Globally, there are competitors like We Are Off The Record and Phiture that provide similar sales tech solutions, but Adeyemo says competition in Africa is limited.
“Within Africa, we don’t have a direct competitor in Africa doing exactly what we do at this scale and in an automated fashion. We are currently unique in having a comprehensive suite of sales growth tools combined with our proprietary products. Our pivot to a tech product company further differentiates us because what we are building is one-of-a-kind in Africa,” he said.
“Since launching our services, we’ve seen incredible demand and traction. We recorded successes driving growth for early clients, so much so that some agencies have tried replicating our growth model and branding. This was part of the impetus to pivot to a tech product company.”
Currently, SAVA is completely bootstrapped, funding operations through its service revenues.
“We are open to the right external investment from VCs or companies that align with our vision, however, we are not satisfied with the options available so far,” said Adeyemo.
“Despite being bootstrapped, we have managed to process over US$1 million in sales across Nigerian and US markets so far. In just this quarter, we have shipped three products and launched two major marketing campaigns for our partners.”
Some key milestones include its recent expansion into a Nairobi office, upcoming launches for its US expansion product, and entry into the Egyptian market.
“We started operating out of Nigeria, but we recently just expanded into Nairobi, and we have an office there. We’re also expanding to Egypt this month, and our “expansion” product, which automates business registration for African companies in the US, will be deployed very soon as well,” Adeyemo said. “We’re expanding our services across major markets and we’ll be doing it gradually.”
Currently, SAVA’s revenue comes from providing its automated sales optimisation services to partner companies that it helps drive growth and monetisation for.
“Once our other suite of tech products across verticals like fashion, travel, and gaming launch later this year, we’ll have those revenue streams and monetisation models as well,” said Adeyemo.
