SendBox raises $1.8Million to Allow E-Commerce Penetration for SMEs

The digital explosion in Nigeria is unprecedented. It has increased the economic growth and created more jobs in the labor market. The digital commerce and Fintech has been the leader in the digital revolution. The cherry on the cake of e-commerce in Nigeria is SendBox. The logistics e-delivery platform has boosted the confidence of small and medium scale enterprise in Nigeria and the continent.

SendBox is a start-up digital delivery firm that provides solution to aid SMEs increase their revenue and profit through logistic services. The challenges of delivering goods and products to their customers and consumers are taken care of by SendBox.

SendBox monitors the goods and products till it gets to the destination through a sensor that performs tracking of the logistic activities and it ensures safe delivery to the customers. SendBox was founded 9years ago by Emotu Balogun when he was running his former company called Traclist. The company shut down because of scaling issues.

According to Balogun,” There wasn’t solutions that allowed us to quickly just aggregate service providers onto a platform and integrate them into a marketplace.” The idea of SendBox started in 2016 with Olusegun Afolahan which fully became operational in 2018.

SendBox adapted the business operations to the needs of customers and merchants in Nigeria. SendBox knowledge of the e-commerce delivery business in Nigeria is the firm’s competitive advantage. The primary focus of the firm is aiding SMEs to succeed in their business endeavors. “SendBox wants to help small e-commerce merchants who sell directly to their own online and offline channels with fulfillment.” Balogun opined. He also affirmed the firm’s competitive edge,” That’s really the thing that attracts a lot of merchants to us. Because what happens is they’re able to start small and actually grow their businesses because we are giving them favorable rates.”

SendBox engages in local and international deliveries to over 200 countries. Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt and Ibadan are the highest destinations for local deliveries. SendBox is available to merchants and users through iOS, Android, web, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and other e-commerce platforms and developer APIs. It has done over 200,000 deliveries which has 35%-40% international deliveries.

The CEO of SendBox asserted that SendBox revenue and transactions have grown 300% year on year since 2018 when the company was founded. The exponential growth has witnessed geographical spread of the business operations. “For us, our vision really is to become the e-commerce operating system for African merchants and logistics is the first entry for the company.” He reiterated.

The seed capital raised was from reliable investors like 4DX Ventures, FJLabs, and Golden Palm Investments. Flexport and YC Combinator also took part in the funding. The company affirmed the first round of funding was in 2018, the pre-seed funding was by Microtraction, and 4Dx. The total fund of investments is $2Million since the establishment of the company.

The co-founder and General Partner at 4DX Ventures, Walter Baddoo also said, “African e-commerce is accelerating faster than anybody could have imagined a decade ago and it needs smart solutions to ensure that logistics and fulfillment capacity doesn’t lack behind.” He also said, “Not only were we impressed by SendBox’s 300% year-on-year growth since launch, but we’re seeing the market potential balloon with over 40Million Nigerian SMEs and projected industry value for social and e-commerce reaching $45Billion in the continent by 2025.”

The company’s vision is to accelerate towards financing & payments, and integrating e-commerce to the marketspace  and marketplace. SendBox is the to go place right across the spectrum starting with Nigeria, West-Africa, and the entire continent.

Made in Nigeria products and services are growing strongly in demand. Nigeria’s digital market is a digital revolution with 200Million Instagram users and 1million Instagram businesses. SendBox is thoroughly positioned to be a strong brand nationally and continentally.