Bumpa Raises $200,000 for e-Commerce Solutions

By Ashemiriogwa Emmanuel

Nigerian tech startup, Bumpa, has closed a total of $200,000 in pre-seed funding round to build e-commerce solutions that help retailers manage and grow their businesses from their mobile phones.

Angel investors who participated in the round included Greencap Equity, HOAQ Club, Whogohost Venture Arm, Rizq Investment Group, Microtraction, DFS Labs, Aidi Ventures, Prosper Otemuyiwa, Oo Nwoye, Perfect Makanju, among others.

Formerly known as Scalescabal, Bumpa was established in February 2020 – in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown which made managing a small business in Nigeria more difficult than it normally should be.

According to a statement from the startup, the fund raised would help Bumpa further assist merchants and businesses in moving their business online; enabling merchants with zero programming skills to set up their e-commerce store using their smartphones.

Merchants on the Bumpa network are also able to accept online and offline payments, manage inventory/products, handle bookkeeping, fulfil orders, track sales, request dispatch riders, engage customers easily, even on the go.

The e-commerce firm founded by Mr Kelvin Umechukwu and Ms Adetunji Opaleye provided an opportunity for businesses to leverage technology tools and non-technical e-commerce solutions tailored for the African market.

Speaking on the investment, the co-founder and CEO of Bumpa, Mr Umechukwu, said that the startup will channel its investment towards expanding its team to better empower more small business owners with the tools to grow their businesses.

“Building the operating system for MSMEs in Africa can be daunting but having the right team, very supportive investors, and the best community of customers makes the work fun to do and a lot easier.

“I believe that a lot of small businesses will thrive as they begin to take advantage of technology for their growth and I’m very excited about the future of commerce in Africa because of what we are building at Bumpa,” he said.

It would be recalled that the startup recently got into the Microsoft for Startups, a scheme for growth-stage startups that gives them free technical consultations and access to corporate partnerships.

The program also gave them free access to enterprise software which include Office 365, Github Enterprise, and Azure credits worth up to $25,000.

With the new investment, the firm said that it is looking to empower more small business owners with the tools to grow their businesses, as it plans to reach 200,000 merchants.