By Adedapo Adesanya
Website hosting infrastructure company, WhoGoHost, has acquired SendChamp, a Nigerian cloud communications startup that powers online messaging for African businesses to deepen its value offering for its customer base.
The deal sum was not announced, but the acquisition is part of WhoGoHost’s strategic plans to evolve from domain-hosting to serve businesses and institutions in the African market.
According to a statement, SendChamp will continue to operate as an independent product as it transitions to new ownership. However, in the near future, its products and services will become accessible via the WhoGoHost integrated platform. The reason for this is to allow for a smooth transition with minimal interruption to existing customer service.
Speaking on this development, Mr Opeyemi Awoyemi, founder of WhoGoHost, said, “Over the last 16 years, WhogoHost has provided domain hosting services to hundreds of thousands of businesses. The acquisition of SendChamp presents us with a unique opportunity to evolve our business from domain-hosting to a one-stop shop for digital services for entrepreneurs and businesses in Africa. We’re excited about what this means for us.”
Founded by Mr Goodness Kayode and Mr Damilola Olotu in 2021, SendChamp is a cloud communications provider that allows businesses to send and receive customer messages across different channels, including SMS, WhatsApp, email, and voice.
Over the last two years, SendChamp has worked with over 6000 businesses, including Surebet247, Baxi, Chowdeck, Wirepay by Maplerad, Bumpa, and TeamApt.
In 2021, SendChamp secured $100,000 in angel funding from local syndicates, including DFS Lab, Hustler Capital, HoaQ Club, Velocity Digital, and a couple of other angel investors—its only round raised to date.
With this acquisition, Whogohost stands to benefit from SendChamp’s product suite across marketing messages, OTP, and customer support systems, deepening its value proposition, while SendChamp will benefit from its access to WhoGoHost’s over 100,000 customer database.
On his part, Mr Kayode, SendChamp’s CEO, said, “With this acquisition, we get to keep building SendChamp as an interoperable product within WhoGoHost’s integrated platform.”
“We received offers from a number of businesses across diverse industries at different points in our journey but ultimately went with WhoGoHost when an offer came, given the synergies between our products and strategic positioning are clear,” he added.
As part of the acquisition deal, the CEO & CTO and some members of the SendChamp team will be joining WhoGohost. Mr Kayode will join as the chief product officer, while Mr Olotu will be the chief technology officer of WhoGoHost.
Modupe Gbadeyanka