Badili Africa Raises Sh259 Million for Expansion

Badili Africa, a company that allows customers to trade in their old phones for new ones at friendly prices, has raised Sh259 million ($2.1 million) funding to scale up operations.

The funds are meant for the expansion of its operations across Africa, a market touted as one of the fastest growing in the world.

The startup was founded by Rishabh Lawania who is the CEO and Keshu Dubey who is the Chief Technology Officer.

It has been in operation since March this year and has expanded to over 37 towns in Kenya with about 245 million ($2M) in annual revenue.

Badili Africa has a platform where sellers express interest to sell their phones and then get an evaluation and a quote before determining the final price.

The company then refurbishes and repackages these phones before selling them.

They are resold with a one-year warranty, with the company saying they are just as good as new.

“We are launching in Uganda and Tanzania and have established strong partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), ” said Lawania.

He said that within the next six months, the firm will expand to a few West African markets to get our foot in the door of some of the major markets in Africa.

The investment was led by venture catalysts, V&R Africa, Grenfell Holdings and SOSV and investors from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and India.

The company says most of its customers are individuals upgrading from a feature to a smartphone, and they believe they are serving a significant part of the market while enhancing smartphone penetration at an affordable rate.

The venture capital market has been at the core of driving startup growth in the country as SMEs struggle to access funding for their business.

Advisory firm McKinsey says that as the fastest-growing start-up industry in the continent, African fintechs raised over Sh160 Billion ($1.3 billion) in 2021 alone.

The success of fintech companies is being fuelled by several trends, including increasing smartphone ownership, declining internet costs, expanded network coverage, and a young, fast-growing, and rapidly urbanising population.