Nigerian startup, Simplifyd has raised the sum of $500,000 in a pre-seed funding round to help solve the challenges associated with accessing affordable data in the African continent.
The funding roun which came from Future Africa and Y Combinator comes after the startup was selected for the W32 batch of the Silicon Valley-based accelerator.
Founded by Tomi Amao, Mayowa Amao, Sam Keiru and Abiola Fajimi in 2020, Simplifyd was launched to provide affordable data to both mobile and web app users in emerging markets across Africa.
According to reports from statista.com, as of December, 2020, Nigeria had more than 154 million internet users – the highest number reported in all of Africa. Meanwhile, Egypt in second place had 54.74 million users.
This is in line with Simplifyd’s drive to become the African continent’s providers of affordable data rates for everyday activity.
Also, the company had launched ZeroData – a toll-free internet application platform to allow users enjoy access to data.
The company has said that the ZeroData app is available for mobile (Android) and desktop (MacOS and Windows) and also allows users access instant data-free access to listed apps and websites, consequently allowing businesses to bundle data with their apps.
Tomi Amao, co-founder and CEO said the ZeroData was created to support greater digital inclusion across the continent by solving challenges around affordability.
He said, “ZeroData is designed to cater to both users with active data plans and those with none. For users with an active data plan, their data plan isn’t consumed when they make use of the application. Our app also enables users with no active data plans to enjoy uninterrupted access to the internet apps listed on the platform.”
“For us, the realisation that Africans pay the highest rate for mobile internet in the world proportional to income is worrying. This is a significant challenge that we are happy to solve sustainably through the launch of ZeroData. We are creating a convenient platform to access the internet away from the challenge of huge data consumption for the continent’s growing number of Internet users”, he added.
