“We’re starting with what makes them comfortable, not what we think is best.” Sabi’s CEO, Anu Adasolum told Techcrunch. 

In its first round of raising capital in 2020, Sabi closed a $2 million seed round from CRE Venture Capital, Janngo Capital, Atlantica Ventures and Waarde Capital. A year later, Sabi still has the attention of all its investors, who are putting their money where their mouth is.

Sabi is focused on ensuring merchants have easier access to the services they need to grow their businesses by providing users with channels that can be accessed both online and offline. The platform facilitates the exchange between merchants, suppliers and traders, granting them access to a larger marketplace and other helpful products like loans and inventory management.

The informal retail sector in Nigeria is estimated to be worth $244 billion and includes over 41 million micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. Anu Adasolum and Ademola Adesina co-founded Sabi to provide an optimised system to help these businesses connect to prospective and existing customers. Sabi was born in the middle of the pandemic as a spin-off to Rensource, an African energy company where Adasolum was COO and Adesina was founder and CEO. Sabi’s rapid growth, in part, is attributed to Adasolum’s time at Jumia, where she was in charge of offline sales, commercial operations and merchant acquisition responsibilities for the African e-commerce giant. These positions helped prepare Adasolum for her most ambitious role yet, as Sabi aims to make its mark on the continent.