Lengo

What they do:

Lengo is building the first operating system for the informal retail industry in Africa, with a mission to help global brands to stop guessing when it comes to their African operations. They deliver a premium SaaS subscription access to the only real time database on consumer goods in the fastest growing consumer market in the world.

Lengo's WhatsApp intelligent chatbot (Sadio AI) is built on WhatsApp and is customised to allow for their customers to interact with Lengo in real-time and in their local language.

Presently, thanks to their WhatsApp embedded intelligent chatbot, Lengo capitalises on retailer crowdsourcing. The company is able to push insights, build on fun, winning and education conversational approaches, and even proposes groupon-like prizes, based on the number of Lengo Points earned by the retailer.

Why we invested:

Africa’s informal retail space consists of 1.4 billion people driving 90% of purchases in corner shops across the continent that has no central source of information. 

Lengo’s customers are Global CPG brands operating in or looking to expand presence in the African market. Their customer base is a mix of product distributors, corporate clients (interested in insights on trends), and shopkeepers who want to better negotiate for cost of goods. This model not only ensures that Lengo has long term clients, but also a sustainable and sticky source of revenue.

Founding Team:

Max Smith is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lengo.

Roger-Xavier Macia is the Co-Founder and CCO of Lengo.

Ismaila Seck is the Co-Founder and CTO of Lengo.

Active in:

Senegal