SUKHIBA, a conversational commerce and CRM platform, has raised $1.55 million to accelerate its expansion across Africa and other emerging markets and become the default CRM and sales force automation tool for emerging markets.
The seed extension round was led by EQ2 Ventures and participation of Accion Venture Lab, Musha Ventures, Quona Capital, and existing investors CRE Ventures.
In a statement, Ananth Gudipati, Co-Founder and CEO of SUKHIBA, said: “”SUKHIBA is designed to bridge the gap between brands, manufacturers, distributors, and their customers in emerging markets by leveraging the ubiquitous nature of WhatsApp. This seed extension marks a significant milestone for us, enabling us to scale our operations and enhance our SaaS platform to better serve our growing customer base of manufacturers, distributors and D2C brands.”
Sukhiba was part of the Google for Startups Accelerator Africa Class 7 participants. The three-month program connects early-stage African tech startups with Google’s best products, people, and advanced technology. The seventh class consisted of 15 tech startups from seven African nations, who were selected from hundreds of applications based on product stage, program alignment, and market fit.
SUKHIBA is powered by WhatsApp which is popular in Kenya and its penetration keeps growing by the day in Africa because of affordable smartphones and cheap data. iMessage and Google’s RCS platforms are not as popular in Kenya making WhatsApp a default messaging platform in the country and also popular in Ethiopia, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria.
Unlike other platforms designed for developed markets that rely on email infrastructure and tailored for developed markets, SUKHIBA caters to the unique needs of emerging markets as it runs on WhatsApp as an operating system for sales, marketing, customer service, payments and more. These helps manufacturers and distributors who heavily rely on physical visits and scattered WhatsApp messages to drive order generation and oversee logistics, often resulting in stockouts and lost sales.
SUKHIBA integrates inventory ordering, payments, trade credit, delivery, and customer relationships and enables manufacturers and distributors to push shopping carts to wholesalers and retailers, thereby reducing order delays and time spent managing inventory. This not only helps SMEs maintain stock levels but also increases their sales, improving their overall productivity and efficiency.
According to Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner, Accion Venture Lab: “We see that small retailers in emerging markets are reliant on in-person interactions to manage their day-to-day commerce. SUKHIBA’s innovative platform can streamline many processes for small and medium enterprises as well as large manufacturers and distributors — from integrating inventory management and payment processing to trade credit, logistics, and customer engagement; all within the familiar interface of WhatsApp, helping improve the client experience and boost productivity.”
Launched in 2023, Sukhiba now operates in eight markets across Africa and India, working with manufacturers, distributors, retail chains, and D2C brands. More than 35,000 SMEs are already purchasing products and services through its merchant partners. Sukhiba is able to scale seamlessly by integrating various payment companies and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, such as SAP, ERPNext, Shopify, WooCommerce etc.
Manish Phulwani, Associate Director at EQ2 Ventures, added: “Our follow-on investment in SUKHIBA is a strong vote of confidence, having witnessed the team’s consistent execution since the early days. Their exceptional product mindset is rare, positioning them to lead the transition of business and consumer transactions to WhatsApp across emerging markets. We look forward to continuing this journey with the team.”