51% of Africa’s 44m SMEs require more funding than they can currently access according to CSIS.
Lack of reliable data on SME cash flow to prove creditworthiness and the fact that investors shy away from SMEs as they find them risky and expensive to lend to and prefer to focus on large businesses presents a $330bn gap.
Google is betting on Built, the Ghanaian all-in-one finance platform to bring solutions to this problem.
When Edward, Rosemary, Yusif, and Mary-Anne couldn’t find the right business tool with customized features for their business, they wondered if others were facing a similar problem and decided to build a unique and robust solution.
That was less than three years ago when they had already spent close to 4 years supporting hundreds of businesses with their accounting, tax, and investment advisory services.
What started as a frustrated venting of the spleen in the office would later transition into a robust finance platform with invoicing, payment, and payroll features. Even though they have served 10,000 businesses across Africa alone so far, it’s Google’s recent support and Startup Wise Guy’s current investment in the business that’s holding the team’s head high and giving them the motivation to go even further this year.
Built is an all-in-one finance platform with the vision to democratize prosperity for African businesses by offering them a simplified payment, payroll, and invoicing solutions. That’s not all the platform boasts of; inventory management, bank reconciliation, multiple currency transactions, Point of Sale services, and micro business credit are some of the additional services.
So far Built has processed over $500 million worth of transactions and disbursed more than $300,000 in cash advances, an impressive record for a fintech product that’s less than 3 years old.
The team launched in December 2018 after working on the idea for close to two years. Quickly, customers of the once-advisory firm enrolled seeing as no platform readily met their demands except Built. Then COVID happened.
Instead of shutting down, Built quickly saw the opportunity to onboard new clients. This came with its own challenges as being a new product demanded demos and in-person meetings to present convincing pitches about the product. But that even challenged the team to enroll a staggering 5,000 businesses.
Business finance management is a hurdle for many businesses on the continent: from expensive retainer fees to unreliable service providers so a platform that fully automates the process is a holy grail.
Nearly 3 out 5 businesses are unable to raise funds due to the inability to accurately keep track of their finances. Edward, the CEO, says they are out to solve this problem by embarking on a financial literacy campaign to drive behavioral change among African entrepreneurs.
Basically, Built is making businesses credit-worthy by automating the cumbersome process of managing their finance, a solution that’s highly welcome in a continent that’s raised $205bn* in 2022 alone to increase investor confidence and support.
The role of banks has been evolving, now fintech like Built is giving businesses the value of easy access to cash and keeping them in control while at that.
Built makes it easy for businesses to be profitable by offering end-to-end finance management services. Raise and record invoices, receive payments from anywhere in the world, pay suppliers, manage payroll, and accurately track cash flow. Generate well-developed, accurate, well-detailed reports, and even reconcile with the bank all from phone or desktop.
“The time it saves and productivity it improves is highly underestimated”, Ben Tandoh, the Sales Manager, opines joyfully. He is the most sold person on the team and from all indications, he loves selling the product.
Built offers a lifetime free unlimited invoicing and payment, expense tracking, and financial reporting package to all businesses that sign up for free.
This helps them to have all their finances in one place without any excel sheets or confusing formulas.
All you need to do is sign up with an email address and start creating invoices for their transactions and Built takes it up from there. It interesting is that this doesn’t require any special skills.
The relief it brings to business is that it reduces revenue leakages, increases tax compliance and creditworthiness of the business, and helps one present a formidable business to investors, stakeholders, and partners.
Built Story and the Future
Talking about 2023, Rosemary says the team has big plans for 2023. “We are looking to expand our team in Nigeria and Kenya, our two other most significant markets while scaling in our top countries which include, the US, UK, Canada, Germany, and India”.
Google isn’t the only investor. Built started receiving grants and angel investments as early as its years of operation as a consultancy.
Built is currently part of the 8 startups being funded by SWG as part of the Startup Wise Guys SaaS Africa Accelerator Programme with over 10,000 businesses on the platform. They are also supported by Consonance Invest.
The convenience it offers and the time it saves are the holy grail of an app that’s been the backbone of businesses and hubs like Zubby Vendors, FountainGate Ventures, MSA HYGIENE SOLUTIONS in Nigeria, Wild Environment Business Solutions in South Africa, Ambulex in Kenya, Orange Brands in Tanzania and CodeTrain Africa, mSimps, CodeCoast in Ghana, just to name a few.
We are passionate about bringing payment relief to creators as well. One key audience we are focusing on is creators. We want to be the key finance partner for the creator economy – help them get their due, says Edward the CEO.
Built is currently working in partnership with Isel Media an influencer marketing agency with a community of over 500 influencers to facilitate payments to influencers.
Built is currently running a 50% annual discount on paid services. For less than $40, one can subscribe for a full year of free automated business finance services.
Log on to www.built.africa, explore the services, sign up, and start automating your business finance with ease, for free.
