Chude Osiegbu led VENCO secures $670,000 funding for technology expansion
An oversubscribed pre-seed fundraising round netted $670,000 for VENCO, a technology business that offers solutions to improve living conditions in residential and commercial communities in Africa.
The additional money will be used by the business to expand its all-in-one technology platform, which currently manages collections, service charge administration, utilities vending, guest access, and other services related to multi-unit property developments across Africa.
Other strategic investors taking part in the pre-seed funding round included Voltron Capital, Decimal Point Ventures, Fast Forward Fund, Tayo Oviosu (CEO of Paga), Odun Eweniyi (COO of Piggyvest), Oo Nwoye, Desigan Chinniah, Dakar Network Angels, and Viktoria Business Angel Network. Zrosk Investment Management served as the round’s lead investor. The new money will help VENCO expand into other cities and nations on the continent as well as build out its credit delivery infrastructure for rent and household expenses, starting with Nigeria and Kenya.
Multi-property projects have become the preferred method of providing residential and commercial real estate as a result of the increasing urbanization of Africa. 80 percent of Nigeria’s 2.5 million households with monthly incomes of $1,000 or more reside in multi-property neighborhoods. Rent takes up 25% of their income, while the remaining 50% is spent on other expenses such as consumables, utilities, internet data, cable TV, and other services. Market opportunity for household spending is $22.5 billion in Nigeria and $100 billion for all of Africa.
There are numerous inefficiencies that negatively affect residents’ experiences and property owners’ income because administering various areas of life in these community complexes is mostly manual and paper-based. For instance, the default rate on service charge collection for multi-property developments in Africa can be as high as 60%, leaving property managers either in the red or compelled to operate on a shoestring budget. Even once payments are received, the manual procedure of reconciliation results in frequent theft and error-prone results.
VENCO automates the collection and reconciliation of all dues and payments in communities, resulting in increased receipts and higher margins for property owners. It was co-founded by Chude Osiegbu (CEO), Reagan Mbitiru (CTO), and Uzochukwu Alor (COO). Self-service capabilities made available by VENCO to residents streamline procedures like guest control, issue and emergency management, as well as utility vending. Residents can now access a variety of embedded financial services, such as insurance, credit facilitation for rent, service charges, and household spend in addition to many other services, thanks to the ability to create an economic profile based on their financial transactions on the VENCO platform.
Over the past nine months, VENCO has experienced growth of more than 200 percent; it now operates in six cities and manages more than 12,000 residential units throughout Nigeria and Kenya. Through its platform, it has completed transactions worth more than $10 million since January 2022. The business also collaborates with e-commerce platforms to make it simpler for customers to access local businesses, energy providers to ensure accurate energy
According to the CEO “the manual nature of many processes associated with life in residential and commercial communities in Africa presents many issues that we believe technology can fix. Beyond this, we also want to leverage technology to deliver new services and experiences that will transform how people live in Africa’s growing cities and create better value for everyone across the board. Our goal is to deliver technology solutions that will enhance living experiences across the continent, and we are excited to have raised these funds to support that mission”
Samson Esemuede of Zrosk said “The team at VENCO are building a platform that allows for the validation of the GDP of the African household. Not only does a platform like VENCO allow for significant improvement in the experience of African residents, facility managers and property owners, it could potentially unlock at scale the sort of financial services the African consumer really needs. We view VENCO as both a SAAS and a financial inclusion play with a potential for strong multiplicative impact across the continent. We are excited to support the VENCO team in achieving their vision”.
