Chpter, the AI-powered conversational commerce platform that enables businesses to sell more on social platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram, announced today that it has secured $1.2 million in their Pre-Seed round. The round was led by Ken Njoroge of PANI, who is the Cofounder & Former CEO of Cellulant. With participation from Plesion Capital, Techstars, Norrsken, Renew Capital, ViKtoria Ventures, and angel investors including NALA Founder and CEO Benjamin Fernandes, and Workpay Cofounders Paul Kimani and Jackson Kibigo.
Chpter, which was launched in Kenya in 2022, will use the capital in three key areas:
- Accelerate product development of its conversational commerce offering.
- Expand its product availability across more countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Enhance its sales and marketing efforts on the back of growing demand from leading brands.
Chpter provides an AI-powered conversational commerce platform that enables merchants to sell more on social platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram by automating conversations, marketing and payments all in one place.
Today, a lot of buying and selling is done over social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and soon TikTok. In emerging markets, this brand of e-commerce (called social or conversational commerce) has grown over the years, and accounts for the majority of e-commerce activity on the continent, particularly because these channels don’t require much digital expertise and are easily accessible. E-commerce in Africa is estimated to grow to $46Bn by 2025, with over 500 million shoppers.
Social commerce does a great job blending content sharing, messaging, and selling into one, helping businesses shorten the sales cycle. But most of the processes through which transactions happen — from product discovery and selection to order placements and payments — are crude and inefficient.
Businesses struggle to handle inbound requests from customers resulting in a significant percentage of sales revenue slipping through the cracks. Simply put, social networks, as they exist today, aren’t built to support end-to-end online shopping experiences, leading to e-commerce businesses losing up to 40% of their revenue to abandoned carts. Besides optimizing conversion, these businesses also struggle with order management and fulfillment, creating inconsistent customer experiences and low trust.
“We are thrilled to pioneer the social commerce revolution, starting in Africa, as more and more consumers turn to social channels such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to communicate and purchase from the brands they love.” says Tesh Mbaabu, Co-Founder and CEO at Chpter. “Specifically, WhatsApp’s role in business communication cannot be overstated. With more than two billion active users, it offers an unparalleled platform for businesses to offer support, engage in sales conversations, and maintain customer relationships.”
“A WhatsApp-led e-commerce experience makes it more inclusive and accessible to the underserved mass market, due to its low data and digital literacy requirements as well as the over 95% usage rate in many emerging markets.” Adds Mark Kiarie, Co-Founder and COO at Chpter.
Chpter ensures businesses are capitalizing on the power of social media platforms to drive more sales by meeting customers where they already are, fostering stronger customer connections through personalized marketing, handling customer conversations across multiple platforms by unifying chats in a single dashboard.
To support this, Chpter also recently became an approved Meta Partner, which enables them to roll out advanced Meta features to businesses all over the world. This includes setting up a product catalog to facilitate easy checkout and payments within whatsapp, sending marketing campaigns on Meta platforms, and providing more cutting-edge solutions for businesses on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram that foster growth, collaboration, personalized engagement, and automation.
Additionally, Chpter has introduced chpter.AI to enable businesses to set up a chatbot and AI sales/customer service agent to ensure no sales fall through the cracks by guaranteeing faster response to customer enquiries, leading to increased sales conversion.
“At Pani we’re always on the look out for founder teams with incredible grit- they embody the relentless passion and fight needed to build in Africa. When we find such founders, we walk with them & invest in them. For this reason, we’re glad to be part of the Chpter story and to support the growth of a product with the potential to transform how we buy and sell across the continent. ” Says Ken Njoroge, Managing Partner at PANI.
“We invested in Chpter because of their highly innovative technology and best-in-class leadership team. Their digital solutions solve complex problems specific to African commerce, highlighting their potential for pan-African success, and their leadership team has the capability and experience to capitalize on this massive opportunity.” Added Ben Finlay, General Partner at Plesion Capital.
Chpter is already live in Kenya and South Africa, powering hundreds of businesses across ecommerce & retail, financial services, education, media & entertainment, travel & hospitality, health and wellness.
Some customers include Britam (East Africa’s largest insurance company), Decathlon (Global sporting goods retailer), Dovey Pharma (Leading pharmacy chain in Kenya), Kicks Kenya (Kenya’s largest online sneakers brand), TSHEPO (South African luxury lifestyle clothing brand), Galxboy (Top streetwear brand in South Africa), Phoneplace (Leading online electronics reseller in Kenya), Flexpay, Standup Collective, IKOJN, City Walk, Artfit, Vision Plus and Victoria Homestore, to mention a few.
Chpter has positioned itself as a software technology company with global ambitions. Over the next few months, they plan to avail the service in at least 5 more markets including Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and Morocco.
