Nairobi-based sales force automation startup Optimetriks has secured USD 330,000 in debt financing in a bid to expand its user base and add more features to its platform.
Optimetrik’s sales force platform helps consumer goods companies and distributors to digitize their workflows and operations.
The startup’s co-founder and CEO, Paul Langlois-Meurinne, said, “Typical use cases are route management, defining where the sales representatives need to pass, checking on visits and productivity, providing guidance and background information on the retailers they engage with, outlet management, checking on stock levels, and things like that.”
Founded in 2016, the company is currently serving 25 companies across 16 African countries.
The 25 companies are in various fields such as food, beauty, telecommunications, food, and professional services, among others.
The debt financing has been secured from French commercial banks.
Optimetrik’s investment history also includes a 2017 GSMA grant. It has been bootstrapped for the most part but has expressed the possibility of a series A investment in the near future.
The companies revenues are primarily from licence and service fees.
CEO Langlois-Meurinne continues, “As our company has matured, and based on our existing traction, we are now considering fundraising in the coming months, to benefit from strategic investors, knowledge of East Africa, and consumer goods distribution.”
“First, the lack of reliable market information and the costs and limitations that exist when trying to collect and analyse data at a large scale,” he adds, “Second, the fact that there are information asymmetries and sometimes misaligned interests between the actors of the ecosystem. Finally, the fact that middlemen take unnecessary margins at the expense of retailers, and distort the value chain.”
The firm launched to solve key problems in African distribution, through promoting transparency and visibility to the distribution space.
“We help our clients implement scientific distribution that is data-driven, where every action is logged in the system, and can be tracked. Our clients access our platform either through the mobile app for the field users, or the web app, for office users who need to navigate in the reporting dashboards and configure the deployment.,” said Langlois-Meurinne, “Our ambition is to be the reference platform that connects directly and on a daily basis consumer goods brands with the millions of African retailers that distribute their products on several key dimensions.”