Dropifi, a Ghanian startup that provides a WordPress widget replacement for “contact us” buttons on websites to allows companies to better analyze incoming messages, discover their contacts and re-channel messages to the right persons in their organizations announced today it has joined early-stage seed fund and incubator program 500 Startups based in Silicon Valley.
The firm announced, “We are happy to announce today that, we’ve joined the 6th batch of companies to join 500 Startups Accelerator Program. Dropifi seeks to clear out the era of long and scary website “contact us” forms that deny businesses of valuable feedback and leads, but will still deliver business critical insights and a spam-free customer engagement.”
According to David Osei, Co-Founder and CEO of Dropifi,“Being the first African startup to join a leading U.S. accelerator validates our idea and serves as a springboard for us to take giant leaps into helping businesses better interact with customers.” Osei added, “We also see it as an inspiration for young African entrepreneurs and a signpost that, Africa is geared up to be the next economic frontier.”
Founded in November 2011, Dropifi joined the 500 Startups program in April 2013 as the first African company to walk through the #500strong doors. A graduate of the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology program, Dropifi and has been making waves Ghana as well as internationally. Most recently it won the Global Start Up Open competition where they beat out 50 international start ups to win the Kauffman Foundation backed award, they were flown to Rio in March to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC and collect this award.
“Dropifi is the first African investment for 500 Startups. Very few seed investors in Silicon Valley will put money into markets as early as Africa, but we think talent exists in every corner of the globe. Dropifi has a killer team and a promising product with global reach. The fact that they hail from Ghana makes it even cooler,” explains Dave McClure.
Using the Dropifi contact widget, companies filter out spam through proprietary anti-spam technology, see incoming message trending data in relation to industry metrics, the demographic and social media profiles of the sender, analyze the real emotions behind the messages and easily integrate with their existing CRMs, e-commerce and blogging platforms.
“ With this tool, companies generate more business leads, make better business decisions, offer a more personalized and better customer service experience, save time, increase productivity and boost their ROI,” adds Osei.
Since launching on WordPress and Shopify late in 2012 there have been over 8,000 downloads on WordPress and over 900 Shopify stores are using the Dropifi widget to collect and analyze their incoming messages and leads.
Dropifi is in San Francisco for 4 months, 3 months at 500 Start Ups headquarters in Mountain View and 1 month taking part in the program’s Demo Days and final investor meetings.
