Funding

Innovative Nigerian Customer Engagement Startup, Termii, Secures $3.65 Million Funding to Drive Expansion Across Africa

Termii, a Nigerian communications platform-as-a-service startup, has recently secured $3.65 million in additional funding, bringing its total funding to approximately $5 million. The CEO, Gbolade Emmanuel, explained that the funds will be used to support the company’s expansion initiatives, focusing on the development and promotion of existing and new products in new markets, starting with Francophone African countries such as Ivory Coast, rather than North Africa as previously planned.

Termii was founded in 2017 by Gbolade Emmanuel, Ayomide Awe, and Atinuke Idowu, who recognized the need for African businesses to have reliable communication channels. The startup provides an API-based communication infrastructure that enables businesses, particularly fintech companies, to engage with customers through various channels, including SMS, voice messaging, mobile tokens, alerts, and a two-way support system.

By 2021, Termii had already raised $1.4 million in seed funding and served over 500 fintechs, with fintechs comprising 89% of its customer base. Notable clients include Chipper, Paystack, Moniepoint, and Piggyvest. Over 1,000 businesses and developers had also utilized Termii’s APIs. At present, the startup’s API and no-code campaign dashboard are relied upon by over 10,000 businesses, facilitating monthly termination of SMS and voice messages. CEO Emmanuel revealed that Termii’s annual recurring revenue has grown by 30 times, and message transactions on its platform have increased from one million to 400 million within this timeframe.

Termii has ambitious plans to expand its product offering beyond regular messaging services. It aims to include calls and one-time password (OTP) generation to further boost transaction numbers. The recently launched mobile app, TermiiGo, which the company claims to be “Africa’s first cross-company mobile virtual solution,” will serve as a key driver for this growth.

“So far, we have been successful in serving customers with pure messaging solutions; however, we realized that the demand for customers grew beyond messaging,” said the chief executive officer of TermiiGo’s capabilities. “Most of our financial services customers required one-time verification systems to valid user transactions and identity; hence we introduced this across SMS, calls, emails, and WhatsApp, giving them multiple options and better delivery rates.”


TermiiGo is a B2B2C model application that incorporates various functionalities similar to popular apps like Google Authenticator, Twilio’s Authy, and WhatsApp. It offers direct-to-mobile notifications, SMS messaging, and time-based OTPs for social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms that utilize 2FA options.

One of the standout features of TermiiGo is its mobile application, which provides both local and international calling services for enterprise businesses. Additionally, it offers global eSIM activation, leveraging the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) model specifically tailored for Africa.

With the eSIM feature, TermiiGo allows African businesses to provide their employees and users with the ability to own eSIM cards or branded SIM cards. These cards offer unlimited voice calls and texts and enable remote working and customer support services with data access, eliminating the need to switch SIM cards when traveling across cities in Africa and even to the United States.

“We plan to support more countries in the future, like countries in the U.K. We plan to launch all these services in phases and have seen growing interest in this product from big tech and financial service providers and small enterprise businesses,” Emmanuel narrated on the eSIM feature. “We would be launching physically first in Nigeria at our conference this June and also in Ivory Coast, Ghana, and the U.S. After which we would explore other locations. However, other features on our app would be open for use across multiple African countries.”

Ventures Platform, a leading Pan-African early-stage investor, spearheaded the funding round, joined by FinTech Collective, a New York-based fund, and Launch Africa Ventures. Additional contributors in this round include Nama Ventures, Aidi Ventures, Ralicap Ventures, Now Venture Partners, Vastly Valuable Ventures, NOA Capital, Assembly Investors, Probability Ventures, Adamantium Fund, MyAsia VC, and Uncovered Fund. Noteworthy angel investors, including the Afropreneur Angel Group, Aubrey Hruby from Tofino Capital, and Eamon Jubbawy from Onifido, also participated.

“Termii stood out to us as a game-changer in the A2P (Application-to-Person) messaging space. Their platform fills a crucial gap by providing seamless integration of telecom services, solving the high message failure rates and complex setup requirements experienced by businesses across the continent,” Dotun Olowoporoku, the general partner at Ventures Platform, said on why his firm backed the four-year-old customer engagement platform.

During discussions with African businesses, Samantha Wulfson from FinTech Collective expressed the following sentiments.

 “Termii’s solution was cited as the fundamental piece of their infrastructure powering day-to-day business operations, ensuring the delivery of OTPs and transaction-related messages with a higher degree of certainty than ever before, and is still only scratching the surface of their vision as a communication layer.”

About GetfundedAfrica

GetFundedAfrica is a cloud-based technology platform that specializes in developing software that helps businesses with growth, storytelling, and funding. Whether you want to raise funds ranging from $100k to $50m or you simply want to grow your business, sign up for free at  www.getfundedafrica.com

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button