Africa’s ReCommerce Startup Badili Raises USD 2.1 Mn in Pre-Seed
Badili, an African company that buys and sells used smartphones, has raised a pre-seed round of USD 2.1 Mn, from V&R Africa, Venture Catalysts, Grenfell holdings, SOSV, Artha India Ventures, Inflection Point Ventures (IPV ) and a dozen other family offices, from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and India.
Launched in March 2022 by serial entrepreneurs Rishabh Lawania and Keshu Dubey, Badili has expanded to over 37 cities & towns in Kenya with an estimated 2 Mn USD in ARR. Badili buys pre-owned phones and sells refurbished smartphones that are tagged “as good as new, for half the price” and come with a 12 months warranty.
The global refurbished smartphone industry is forecasted to grow at an annual growth rate of 10.23% between 2022 and 2027. The overall used phone market in Sub-Saharan Africa alone was over 90 million phones in 2020, as per Badili.
Recommerce around the world has grown at a fast pace with companies like Back Market, Cashify, Aihuishou, and Amazon Renew, amongst others.
Badili operates an eponymous platform — online, physical stores and its “hustler” network — for users to sell and buy used smartphones. Selling/buying used phones through grey markets is a highly opaque process, especially for accurate price discovery. Badili is solving this crucial challenge by deploying a price estimation algorithm.
Free Reads The U.S. Has Jacked Up Visa Costs For Nigerians All Over The World & The Official Reason May Not Be The Real Reason
Free Reads Microsoft Unveils Modified Multi-Million Dollar Equity Equivalent Investment Programme In South Africa
Free Reads Despite South Africa Being Among Top Gender Equal Countries In Africa-Women Still Remain Under-Represented
“At Badili, we’re building Africa’s first ReCommerce company. We work on the concept that one’s trash can be one’s resource. The used devices acquired go through an extensive repair & refurbishing process and are finally sold to our network of over 250 mobile retailers in Kenya,” says Rishabh Lawania, Founder & CEO of Badili.
The company runs trade-in services for OEMs and retailers to help them sell new phones and help customer fund their new phones. Badili already has trade-in & buyback partnerships in Kenya with all major OEMs and Telcos, including Samsung & Apple.
Badili said its devices are typically low-end, those that retail for sub-$300 when new. A large part of that push comes from the offline network, but the startup is also expanding its online channels and working to reach more consumers selling their devices.
A Badili reseller can make 3X more profit on a Badili device when compared to a brand-new one. The startup aims to expand its online-to-offline (O2O) portfolio in Kenya. It already has about 270 partner retail stores, 120 Agent, “Hustler” stores and 2 exclusive Badili stores.
