This Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
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This Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
Read MoreThis Botswana-based AI startup is looking to revolutionise marketing in Africa. Here is how they plan to do it
The rise in popularity of OpenAI’s conversational AI chatbot, ChatGPT, has seen the entrance into mainstream culture of consumer facing AI tools. DALL-E, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion are some other popular tools. In Africa, however, innovation around generative AI products has not become apparent. This does not mean that there is no activity in the AI space on the continent. Seipone.ai is a Botswana based AI startup which is building an enterprise software-as-a-service product which seeks to revolutionise the way brands understand their customers. Initially founded in 2018 as “Seriti Insights” which was a software consultancy firm, Seipone.ai made a full pivot to AI in April 2022, deciding to focus entirely on its enterprise AI SaaS product. This move is further explained by co-founder and CEO Nomsa Makgabenyana in an interview with TechCabal. “We started in 2018 building ad hoc and bespoke software solutions mainly in the insurance space for sales and operational teams to boost their productivity and to be able to get the maximum results from the data that they have,” she said. “Last year, we then decided to completely pivot from that business to build and solely focus on our AI too, Seipone.ai” A pivot worth making Although the timing for the pivot into AI seems well thought as it coincided with the bursting of generative AI into the mainstream, it was a difficult pivot to make for Makgabenyana and her team. “It was a difficult decision to make particularly because it meant we lost that consistent revenue from the consultancy business. But it was very important for us to take that strategic decision because we really believe in the potential of not only AI as a technology but of Seipone.ai as a business.” Speaking more on the product, Makgabenyana believes it will be the next big thing in helping companies and brands in Africa harness the power of social media and AI to really understand the sentiments and pain points of consumers. Using the power of artificial intelligence and applied machine learning, Seipone.ai carefully mines historical and real-time data to help brands and companies understand consumer sentiments for insightful decision-making, no matter their language and style in linguistics, which are ever so fleeting. It is designed to learn and understand natural language and is able to understand Setswana and other indigenous languages like Swahili as well as social media lingo and slang. It also gives emotions behind opinions and gives insights into what the public perception is of the user’s topic of interest, rendering it a bot with artificial intelligence capabilities. Target users include marketing agencies, advertising teams, brand builders, and managers by helping them to manage their brand reputation, identify online mentions, gain consumer intelligence, and more using a mix of algorithms that capture and comprehend 87% of data that is missed by traditional media tools that would otherwise be left out. Makgabenyane at the launch of Seipone.ai in April, 2022. (Image source: Provided) Expansion ambitions Although Seipone.ai currently serves clients only in Botswana, who include the country’s largest commercial bank and leading mobile network operator, the start has its sights set on entering the East Africa market, specifically Kenya. There are also future plans to penetrate the Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Rwanda, USA, and Netherlands markets as there has been a significant amount of interest there. The startup is currently in the process of raising a seed round to further build out their minimal viable product (MVP) and also supercharge its expansion ambitions, a process she expects to be concluded within the next 6 to 18 months. “We have raised money in the past through some grants and although it has helped extend our runway, we are talking to a couple of investors who are showing a lot of interest. The issues we are coming across are with regards to valuations and other tidbits, which are expected especially in an undesirable economic environment but all in all, everything is progressing well and we expect to succeed with fundraising,” said Makgabenyana. Additionally, Makgabenyana also believes that the funding will help in marketing the product offering because their experience has shown that there is still a significant knowledge gap in most African markets about the true power of utilising AI as a marketing technology tool. Image source (Provided) To address that gap at the moment, Seipone.ai has developed a platform called Seipone Learning which is basically three workshops designed in-house to offer education on the power of AI for brands and companies. “So there’s three workshops in Seipone Learning. One is taken by me and focuses on showing the value of AI for businesses. The second one focuses more on how customers can incorporate AI into their marketing process and is taught by my co-founder Kagiso Mpa. The third one speaks more on understanding the value of language in marketing and is taught by a consultant who is a specialist in Applied Linguistics,” added Makgabenyana. Marching forward A year after fully pivoting to the AI product, Seipone.ai has had its fair share of wins, losses,challenges, and the lessons that come with the process. According to Makgabenyana, all those will contribute greatly towards building a business that will revolutionise the way companies and brands think about marketing in Africa. “I think we entered the market at the right time because the success of ChatGPT has given much needed attention to not only generative AI products but also enterprise ones like ours. We have garnered a significant amount of traction like raising some funds and also being accepted into programs like CcHub Nigeria which has helped us to significantly improve our product,” she said. On what will be the main focus over the next year of operations, Makgabenyana alludes to the focus on building partnerships that will serve the expansion mandate of the startup. “Forming partnerships will be very, very important because they will allow us to add some wind to our sails in terms of traction. Partnerships will also give us more clout because as a
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Naira nullified: Killing cash in an economy that runs on cash
<!– In partnership with –> Cet article est aussi disponible en français This essay is a contribution from Chernay Johnson (Director of Research, DFS Lab) and Joseph Benson-Aruna (Partner, DFS Lab) At the end of 2022, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) decided it was time to aggressively mop up excess cash in the economy and push more of the population towards its cashless policy by redesigning the naira and limiting cash withdrawal amounts. If you’ve been on any news or social media platform tied to Nigeria, you should know by now how terribly that went. The policy faced a legal challenge from 16 Nigerian states arguing against the length and unfairness of the deadline, resulting in the Supreme Court ruling that the old naira notes remain legal tender until December 31, 2023, and ordering the apex bank to suspend the deadline for the swap of naira notes. Even with the suspension, the ramifications of this policy mishap on the economy have been massive. Banking ecosystem and payment infrastructure unprepared The magnitude of impact has been huge. Cash in circulation declined by almost 70% between December 2022 and February 2023, per official data we retrieved from the CBN. As banks struggled to handle the surge in cash deposits, businesses and individuals began rejecting old notes out of fear of being stuck with unspendable cash. Majority of the population (nearly half of which are unbanked) were caught between: (1) the apparent poor planning by the CBN with regards to making said new notes available to banks in time for the deadline, and (2) the banks’ inability to handle the uptick in electronic banking activities as a result of the policy. Various media (here, here, here and here) reported that people had flocked to physical bank branches and ATMs to cash in old naira notes and source new notes but were not adequately served. Partially, this is due to Nigeria having very low levels of physical banking infrastructure, e.g. only 16.2 ATMs per 100,000 adults as of 2021. Mainly, the banks just did not have enough cash on hand, leaving lower-tier customers especially underserved. Many customers attempted to go cashless with account-to-account bank transfers, but found themselves confronted by a wave of failed transactions (including those initiated by USSD) and faulty mobile banking applications. Many fled to Twitter in outrage with very limited recourse through customer support services. Though the Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System (NIBSS) has not reported the official failure rates (since 2020, sigh), a host of published media interviews with the banking industry suggest the worsening in downtime of the central switch is largely to blame. “70 percent of bank customers, who visit the banks, are there to resolve issues that border on failed ePayment transactions. From Lagos to Kano, Ondo to Kebbi, Rivers to Sokoto states, the story has remained the same. Customers continued to besiege the banking halls with the hope that their failed ePayment transactions would be resolved. While many customers were told to come back, others lament that their transactions could not be traced, setting in rounds of frustrations on the banking public” The Guardian, April 18, 2023 Partner Message Join African law firm, TEMPLARS, and international law firm Clifford Chance for their tech roundtable “Perspectives on Fintech in Nigeria”. Explore the latest fintech trends with global investors, policymakers, and leaders. Register now for insightful discussions and networking. CICO networks and small merchants have borne the brunt of servicing the last mile The one million CICO agents (“human ATMs”) spread across the country have borne the brunt of the surge experiencing increased costs of sourcing cash that they must pass on to the consumer at the last mile. CICO withdrawal costs to consumers have reportedly increased almost 20X in recent months to between ₦200 and ₦300 for every ₦1,000 withdrawal. With the increased costs of transacting in cash, the poor have much less to spend on basic necessities and food. Nigeria’s expansive 39m+ micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) base (including petty cash businesses), contributing 46% of national GDP, are possibly the worst hit. These businesses run on cash from sales and have thus struggled to stay afloat. Some have had to take up other solutions such as allowing customers to “By Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) to maintain operations. A leading macro indicator, the Stanbic IBTC Bank PMI for Nigeria fell to its worst level since the pandemic, signalling deterioration in country-wide business activity in the first quarter of 2023. Immediate impact of CBN policy on payments digitisation bigger than the “pandemic effect” Electronic fund transfer (EFT) volumes settled through the NIBSS Instant Payment Scheme (NIP) rose by an impressive 226% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023 (see table below). Mobile payment channels—which often service the low-value retail segment—showed even more significant year-on-year growth in transaction volumes, 605% in the same period. These are major jumps in the number of digital transactions. DFSLab estimates based on official data from NIBSS and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Accessed 21 April 2023. We also looked at the longer-term trends in the official data (not shown here), which suggest that the impact of demonetisation policy on payments digitisation in Nigeria is already much larger than the “COVID pandemic effect”. Partner Content: Earnipay expands its earned wage access solution to provide more solutions for businesses and income earners While this data paints a clear picture of what’s happening on the supply side, we are still missing data to clarify what’s happening to consumers. It’s part of the DFS Lab mission to create new data and insights of the tech ecosystem, so in March our team conducted a rapid survey of ~1,000 respondents in Nigeria to assess what the picture on the ground looks like. As far as we know, this is the first assessment of digital payments’ usage behaviour, following the onset of the country-wide cash crunch. It’s important to note that the data reflect the behaviours of the more digitally included and urbanised population, given that our
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