Elloe.a kenyan conversational commerce startup has has acquired Flo by Saada, a Kenyan social commerce startup founded by Gerishon Mwaniki.
The moves comes nearly three months after raising more than $1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by institutional investors.
While commenting on the transaction, Elloe CEO and Founder Owen Sakawa said: “The addition of Flo by Saada technology is a natural extension of Elloe’s offerings and fits perfectly into Elloe’s strategy. It transforms customer interactions from simple communications to conversations across the entire spectrum of customer engagement points.”
Flo by Saada was launched in 2019 with a bid to enable small and medium enterprises build solutions and process payments through USSD and programmable SMS, was completed for an undisclosed fee.
The acquisition will enable Elloe to accelerate its next phase of growth by scaling operations for its corporate clients and expanding its footprint beyond its current operations in Kenya and the Philippines.
According Founder Owen Sakawa Elloe will be better positioned to meet customers’ evolving needs in the future as it continues to provide businesses with embedded commerce capabilities to simplify the way that they serve, connect with, and sell to their own customers from anywhere, on any channel.
Elloe was founded in 2021 by Sakawa, Abhijay Rao, and Aaron Madolora as a first-of-its-kind AI-powered, conversational commerce platform that allows small and medium enterprises to buy and sell products online across messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram.
Elloe proprietary technology helps small businesses in managing their digital sales and customer service through an omnichannel platform that runs on messaging apps.
The startup hopes to capitalize on opportunities in the $35-billion conversational commerce market, which has the potential to reach $130 billion by 2025 in emerging markets.