mSurvey, a startup that helps firms to gather customer feedback via the mobile phone has raised $3.5 million from TLCom Capital to expand across Africa with South Africa as its next stop after its launch in Nigeria in February this year.
mSurvey’s Series A round of USD$3.5m, was led by Africa focused venture firm TLcom Capital with investment from Social Capital, Kapor Capital, Golden Palm, and Richard Owen; founding team of Net Promoter Score (NPS).
According to Dr. Kenfield Griffith, mSurvey co-founder and CEO, “Completing our Series A round allows us to tackle this difficult, yet enormous opportunity that exists in connecting African consumers with businesses to develop trust, and ensuring that millions of more two-way conversations can take place each year. African consumers will be spending $2.1 trillion a year on consumer goods by 2025, a growth rate of at 4.5%. We see mSurvey as a strategic partner for thousands of companies who are part of this growth trajectory.”
This follows Seed Investment rounds from Cross Culture Ventures, Alpha Angels and Safaricom’s Spark Venture Fund. The investment will enable the company to continue building out its infrastructure and partnerships, in order to scale and expand into more African countries.
Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and with a recently launched office in Lagos to develop in-depth understanding into the African consumer, gathering real-time insights via mobile SMS conversations with its Voice of the Customer and Consumer Wallet products, as well as through its successful launch of Net Promoter Score [NPS] in Africa.
Last year alone, the company conducted over 12M conversations with consumers on the continent and works with businesses such as Commercial Bank of Africa, Kenya Commercial Bank, Safaricom, Airtel, Java House, Liberty Insurance, and Britam as well as US-based companies and institutions including Harvard, Emory and CNN.
mSurvey brings increased visibility and understanding of the African consumer, coupled with two-way conversations between businesses and their customers. Over 66% of Africa’s economic activity takes place in the informal sector, making it challenging for any business to understand who their customer really is, and hindering the analysis of feedback. Through partnerships with leading mobile network operators such as Kenya’s Safaricom, mSurvey is able to comprehensively map a customer’s journey through every single touchpoint, allowing businesses to identify any weak spots that exist within their product or service delivery, directly from the source; the customer.
TLcom Capital has achieved significant exits in the African technology space so far, with an unparalleled track record in selecting African pioneering companies such as Andela and Terragon.
“mSurvey is enabling the supply side of the vast underserved consumer markets in Africa to have a much better understanding of their customers. Large corporates and SMEs desperately need more data on the African consumer to serve a growing demand that is only reachable via the mobile platform. This is a unique business proposition with the potential of scaling quickly and transforming the way African consumers are finally understood and properly served.” said Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom Capital, who is joining the board of mSurvey.
