Kenyan start-up mSurvey has just secured investment from private-sector financing institution Proparco.
“Proparco’s investment rationale relies on the quality of the team leading mSurvey and the solution that the company has developed to tackle customer feedback needs in African countries. Proparco’s investment in mSurvey, in line with its mandate to support innovation and entrepreneurship across the African continent, will help mSurvey scale its customer feedback solution to new regions in Africa and therefore provide businesses with a much needed customer-centric solution tailored to the African market,” said Eric Zontsop, Investment Officer at Proparco.
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Proparco is a development financial Institution partly owned by the French Development Agency and private shareholders from the developed countries and developing nations, according to its website. The company does private investment in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to reach the Sustainable Development Goals.
Co-founded in 2012 by CEO Kenfield Griffith, Cross Culture Ventures’ company, mSurvey, collects customer feedback for clients via short-messaging on mobile phones. It previously secured $3.5 million investment from TLCom Capital.
“With a balance sheet of 5.4 Billion Euros, Proparco has a diverse investment portfolio in 80 countries in various industries with a background in banking, financial services, microfinance institutions, innovative startups just to name a few industries,” according to the Cross Culture Ventures website.
The idea for mSurvey came from Griffith’s own challenges when he searched for data in emerging markets while he was studying for his Ph.D. at MIT. “As a result, he co-founded the company alongside CTO, Louis Majanja in Nairobi, Kenya to simplify access to quality consumer data from communities that were initially hard to reach,” Medium reported.
mSurvey received backing from Kenyan telecoms operator Safaricom.
mSurvey wants to expand. Griffith told Reuters last year, that MSurvey is going “to expand to Nigeria, where we have just opened an office. South Africa will launch within the next six to eight months.”
Africa’s tech sector continues to grow and attract foreign investment. “New research by entrepreneurship portal Disrupt Africa shows that in 2017 the number of African tech startups to raise funding hit 159 – up from 146 companies in 2016. In 2015, only 125 startups managed to attract investment. Investor confidence and willingness to back African tech ventures is clearly accelerating,” Forbes reported. In fact, total funding raised by these tech companies was at $195,060,845, a whopping 51% increase on the previous year’s figures. This took investment into African startups to an all-time record high.
