In a seed funding round, the company known as Pastel (previously known as Sabi Cash) raised a total of $5.5 million. Pastel is embarking on a quest to develop digital technology to unleash the value of smaller firms in Nigeria and other emerging markets across the world.
TLcom Capital led the funding round.
Participating in the seed round were Global Founders Capital (GFC), Golden Palm Investments, DFS Labs, Ulu Ventures, Plug and Play, and Soma Cap.
In order to launch Sabi, its flagship product, Pastel raised $620,000 in pre-seed funding last year. Sabi enables SMEs to monitor their transactions, manage their customers, and gain insights into their cashflows before issuing receipts or invoices. Pastel was founded by Stanford graduates Abuzar Royesh, Olamide Oladeji, and Izunna Okonkwo.
“Our plan was to gain traction rapidly by providing a free and simple solution to a merchant’s problem. Value capture was the next stage. Due to the fact that our clients adore the Sabi app, we added value capture tools to it. We are currently building a lot more, according to Okonkwo.
According to the business, over 100,000 merchants have signed up for its bookkeeping and customer relationship management software over the past nine months, and it presently serves over 45,000 active merchants.
The startup intends to use the additional capital to develop tools that assist micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in growing their customer bases, handling payments, gaining access to financial services, and participating fully in the digital economy.
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