SA Hybrid Sales StartUp Qwili Raises $1.2 Million In Seed Funding
SA Hybrid Sales StartUp Qwili Raises $1.2 Million In Seed Funding. South African hybrid sales startup Qwili has announced that it has managed to raise $1.2 million in order to boost its mission of making digital products and services accessible. The company took to LinkedIn to make this announcement.
The post read, “We’re excited to announce our raise of $1.2m in an oversubscribed seed funding round, boosting our mission to make digital products and services accessible to digitally excluded and unbanked consumers. Thank you to all the investors who have backed this vision!” Qwili solves for digital inclusion with a hybrid hardware-software product designed to shift the cost burden of owning and using a smart device from end-users to other ecosystem players.
The funding round was led by South African venture firm capital E4E Africa. “We’re very happy to announce our investment in Qwili. Cool team of people, great mission and business model and a good team of investors to back entrepreneurs and mission!” the company said. E4E Africa supports early stage ventures in South Africa from very early stage to scale up. The company is an entrepreneur-led, entrepreneur- focused, hands-on investor. It invests in scalable innovation, combining attractive ROI and high positive societal impact. E4E Africa also focuses on funding diverse teams (addressing funding disparity & believing in the power of diversity).
“We believe that Qwili is both highly scalable and high impact. Qwili agents love the entrepreneurial opportunity that Qwili provides them while giving their community access to e-commerce and to fairly priced goods and services,” Bastiaan Hochstenbach, co-founder and managing partner at E4E Africa on the investment told Tech Crunch. “Qwili’s founding team is exceptional, and the business model is a strong fit with E4E Africa’s aspiration to support diverse founders in creating a thriving, innovative, and inclusive Africa.”
