Major Foreign Investors Splash N2.19bn on Nigerian Rewards Startup, Thankucash, to Scale Services

• ThankUCash plans to scale up its services and move it to other part of the Nigeria and Africa as received N2.19bn backing from foreign investors
• The funding which was led by 500 Global has other investors which including Unicorn Growth Capital and six others
• The company which started in 2018 has 600,000 users and onboarded over 1,000 stores on its platform

Nigerian multi-merchant rewards platform ThankUCash has raised US$5.3 million(N2.19bn) in seed funding as it plans expansion into new markets and further product launches.

Co-founded in 2018 by Simeon Ononobi, Suraj Supekar, Madonna Ononobi and Harshal Gandole, ThankUCash offers cashback on purchases and deals from thousands of merchants, which in turn helps merchants retain customer loyalty, increase revenues, and grow.

The startup has recorded over 600,000 users and onboarded over 1,000 stores on its platform, whilst processing more than US$80 million in transaction volume.

Who are the investors

ThankUCash US$5.3 million seed round was co-led by 500 Global (ThankUCash took part in the 26th edition of the Silicon Valley-based accelerator back in 2020) and Unicorn Growth Capital.

The round also has participation from Expert Dojo, Predictive VC, SaaS Growth Ventures, Betatron, Accelerex Holding, former HSBC CEO Andrew Dell, Google director of strategy and operations Craig Fenton, and others.

What it plans to do with the new investment

With the fund, ThankUCash which already operates in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt reveals it use the fund to actualised its plans to scale operations to other cities across the country, and expand to Ghana and Kenya.

It will also introduce two new products, a remittances service and a “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) infrastructure.

The startup also noted it will provide the tech infrastructure which will connect merchants with credit and loan facilities such that customers can pay directly for goods and services through the ThankUCash super app, with loans from credit facilities.

In his words Simeon Ononobi, the startup’s CEO, said:

“The technology is such that we have our machines in stores. So as customers request loans, we generate a code for it, customers input it into the PoS machine, and the merchant gets credited directly.

"The code can only be used in the store chosen and only for the loan amount requested, such that at the end of the day the customer is buying straight from the merchants. We’re opening this infrastructure to everybody and want to actually give that platform to loan companies”

Shuttlers gets huge backing from foreign investors

In a similar story, Legit.ng had earlier reported that foreign investors continue to invest in Nigerian entrepreneurs with innovative ideas.

Shuttlers, a bus company, is the most recent to get funding, and it will join the ranks of other Nigerian digital start-ups that have scaled up after investment.

TeamApt, one of the successful foreign investor-backed businesses, is now raising its third round of funding in order to boost its market value to over $1 billion.

Source: Legit.ng