With products across various verticals, Ethiopian startup Ethio Clicks is making a claim on being the country’s first “super app”.
Founded in 2020, Ethio Clicks is primarily focused on e-commerce, in areas such as shopping, real estate, and package delivery.
Its various platforms include BetDelala, a real estate web portal and mobile application that connects home-seekers with properties and agents; restaurant-listing service Esoora; and mobile shopping platform Zegulit, a marketplace app that allows small companies to sell their products digitally.
Founder Ezedin Wangoria is an experienced software developer that had always dreamt of building his own product, but economic limitations always meant it was a far-fetched dream.
“I got an opportunity to study my MSc in Europe, and to work in the US. This opportunity exposed me to different entrepreneurial ideas and gave me economic flexibility. Plus, in the last four-to-five years, internet access in Ethiopia improved, and many people and services in the country came to the digital world,” he said.
So Wangoria and partner Ibrahim Ali launched Ethio Clicks, with the help of several students recruited to its year-long internship programme.
“When internet access was liberalised, the rush to fulfill digital solution demand began. We discussed and prioritised which area we should delve into. Since we are in the early digital age of the country, we jumped into providing solutions that are well established in other countries, such as real estate, e-commerce, and delivery,” Wangoria said.
Ethio Clicks is self-funded thus far, and is focused on developing products and getting to market.
“We have successfully achieved developing quality products and getting moderate market flow. We are waiting for our country’s capital market to get started. We are positioning ourselves to attract investment and expand accordingly,” said Wangoria.
“Given the recency of accessibility of internet connections and the limited familiarity of the people for online business, our growth is limited, but promising. The budget limitation to spend on advertisements has also impacted our growth, but considering these important factors, our growth is not bad. We expect our growth to increase through time.”
