Kenyan E-commerce startup, Chpter has raised $1.2 million in a pre-seed round of funding. The startup, founded by the co-founders of the YC-backed Marketforce will use this new funding to improve its technology stack. It also aims for a major expansion, having Egypt and Nigeria in its sights.
At the moment, the company operates in Kenya and South Africa.“We are investing in our tech stack to offer an end-to-end product, connecting the APIs from social media platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram with popular e-commerce and customer relationship management systems like Shopify and Woocommerce,” Tesh Mbaabu, Chpter’s co-founder and CEO told TechCabal.
Pani, an Africa-focused investment firm co-founded by Cellulant’s former CEO, Ken Njoroge, led the funding round. Other participants in the funding round include Plesion Capital, Techstars, Norrsken, Renew Capital, and ViKtoria Ventures, and angel investors. Nala founder and CEO Benjamin Fernandes and Workpay co-founders Paul Kimani and Jackson Kibigo also took part in the funding round.
The fundraising serves as a huge vote of confidence from investors in the young startup. It was founded while its two co-founders were running Marketforce, which is a YC-backed Kenyan e-commerce platform once valued at over $100 million.
Some of Chpter’s investors had previously invested in Marketforce. However, Chpter’s CEO Mbaabu has declined to share further details. According to him, Chpter operates independently of Marketforce.
“Chpter was and is not under the MarketForce umbrella. It is going to continue operating independently. However, MF is a shareholder in it,” Mbaabu told TechCabal in May 2024.
Founded in 2022 by Tesh Mbaabu, Mesongo Sibuti, Kuria Kevin and Mark Kiarie, Chpter helps businesses convert social media from a marketing channel to a sales platform with chat, order, and payment tools. The company charges a monthly subscription and earns a transaction fee for payments processed on its platform. It has successfully accrued a notable list of clientele including insurer Britam, shoe store Kicks Kenya, and e-commerce platform Phoneplace.
Chpter’s acceptance into the Norrsken Accelerator in 2023 and the Safaricom Spark Accelerator in May 2024 may have positioned it as a key startup in conversational commerce. Norrsken Accelerator investment remains undisclosed. Chpter joined Safaricom’s Spark Accelerator in May 2024. The telco provided three months of training and mentorship to help Chpter scale.
The Safaricom Spark Accelerator, backed by Kenya’s largest telecommunications company, invested between $150,000 and $500,000 in Chpter. This massive investment further validates the startup’s potential in the African market.Asides the financial support those accelerator programs have provided, they have also helped Chpter refine its business model, expand its network, and gain visibility in the competitive tech ecosystem. The exposure and support from these programs have positioned Chpter as a key player in the emerging field of conversational commerce, where businesses use messaging platforms to interact with customers and drive sales.
