Sukhiba is a conversational chat-based platform for businesses looking to leverage the popularity of WhatsApp. It has established a B2B conversational commerce framework that allows businesses to attain and market their product with Meta’s messaging WhatsApp. Sukhiba is leveraging the fact that social media market volume will rise continuously as businesses and micro-entrepreneurs hold onto digital media. This is boosted by the rising utilization of apps such as WhatsApp, TikTok, and Instagram.
Merchants utilize social media sites to advertise their products and network with customers. The end-to-end buying can still be not too seamless, this is the main reason behind Sukhiba Connect. Sukhiba will empower sellers to manage orders, using local payment forms such as mobile money service M-Pesa, dispatch notifications and customer base. Buyers will enjoy the ability to surf online for product brochures, move/expunge products to carts, and even payout without disconnecting from WhatsApp.
Ananth Gudipati, co-founder and CEO of Sukhiba said, “We have brought to WhatsApp the ability to do the entire transaction from conversation, purchase, and payments to delivery.” Sukhiba revealed they have enabled WhatsApp business for about 30 organizations of which most are major manufacturers and distributors that have operations serving about 15,000 micro, small, and medium sized companies (MSMEs)
The CEO added that manufacturers use their product to assist their sales team, who usually work offline, to expand their operation radius and reach new users. Another feature established by Sukhiba is the ability of manufacturers to converge customers based on routes, to which sales reps are then assigned for bespoke in-app assistance.
Gudipati went on to say that “African customers order via trust, and trust is often built with relationships. Salespeople have that relationship with retailers and we are not trying to replace it, that is why routing the chat was a very essential innovation for us. We can power an entire CRM function through WhatsApp with routes, sales staff, view mapping, monitoring, and all other features that manufacturers need.”
Sukhiba is now looking at widening its operations beyond Kenya as they have secured $1.5 million funding in a round led by CRE investment. Antler, EQ2 ventures, Goodwater Capital, Chandaria Capital, and some other angel investors engaged in the round.
