HomeStartupsSabi Raises $6Million to Boost Business for SMEs and Informal Sector of the Economy in Nigeria and Africa Innovations Sabi Raises $6Million to Boost Business for SMEs and Informal Sector of the Economy in Nigeria and Africa Surprisingly a large percentage of workers and firms function outside the scope of the government in emerging economies. According to a recent data by the WorldBank on Nigeria’s economy, 84% of employments in the economy operates in the informal sector. Nigeria’s informal sector is worth closed to the half of the GDP which is $220Billion, and it has over 40million SMEs. Sabi a B2B marketplace digital start-up firm that branched out of Rensource a renewable energy company that builds and operates solar-powered utilities for commercial purposes. The tech start-up is providing a digital infrastructure and e-commerce platform for SMEs and informal sector of the economy. The company announced recently that it has raised $6Million bridge round which was led by pan-African VC firm CRE Venture Capital. Sabi, formed in 2020, it also raised a $2Million seed round from CRE Venture Capital, Janngo Capital, Atlantical Ventures and Waarde Capital. Sabi’s innovative tweak to aid SMEs and informal sector of the economy at performing better and making profit is a proof that Africa’s digital space is closing the gap in the digital race. The start-up’s concept is to solve the distribution channel’s problem most SMEs and the informal sector of the economy is experiencing. Adesina the CEO of Rensource once affirmed, ” We are not trying to be, you know tech-enabled digital distributor, We’re not trying to disintermediate a market full of hyper specialization where one of the defining characteristics of the informal sector is you have all the middlemen agents performing a very narrow role.” He also opined that,” We think that specialization is important for the sector to work properly whether it’s aggregation, making a sale, knowing the customer especially well, all these middlemen play a key role. And the way we deal with them is we give them a set of tools and an infrastructure they can run their business on to make it more optimized.” Sabi, encourages manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers to operate on its marketplace digital infrastructure. The CEO of Sabi Adasolum also opined, “We focus our processes, policies, and monitoring around understanding the different types of users and monitoring how the parties work with are serving them.” She also conclude,” As a result, the experience of each off-taker is different and it works more for their particular business type. So I’m not going to go to a business that is used to working a particular way and change it but instead offer several other channels that they’re more comfortable with through our platform.” Businesses on Sabi deals more with FMCG(Fast Moving Consumer Goods), the platform has more than 175,000 businesses and the transaction volume is over $200Million. GMV(Gross Merchandized Volume) as blossomed since inception which explains how important to SMEs and the informal sector of the economy. Growing at 40% month on month in Nigeria, and Sabi hopes to use the fund raised to expand into other African countries. Support PisonTechAfrica.com For inspiring tech content and articles, PisonTechAfrica.com is the platform to go. Great content takes a lot of resources; we are poised to motivate young start-ups and give them leverage with our platform. It is a platform for inspiring tech entrepreneurs to display their talents. Africa is the next big thing for technology. PisonTechAfrica.com is the tech media platform committed to positioning Africa in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Donate Oluwagbenga Oyebanji Share This Previous ArticleOnePipe Raises $3.5Million to Expand the Fintech's Space Next ArticleArt of Technology Lagos 3.0 is putting Lagos on the Technology Conference Globally November 26, 2021
