For an unknown fee, Kenya’s Elloe, a conversational e-commerce firm, purchased rival Flo by Saada in order to expand its business and enter new markets.
Elloe, a pioneering conversational commerce platform driven by AI and founded by Owen Sakawa, enables SMEs to conduct online business transactions on any messaging platform.
In order to add a bundled, AI-driven solution to its current portfolio of messaging services, the business has acquired Flo by Saada, whose team will join Elloe’s product and engineering division in Kenya. The startup completed a $1 million US pre-seed fundraising round in April.
Gerishon Mwaniki introduced Flo by Saada in 2019, a company whose technology enables SMEs to create conversational commerce solutions and handle payments using USSD, programmable SMS, Voice (IVR), and WhatsApp Business. Customers include Telkom Kenya, Quick Bus, Oxfam, and others in the hotel, retail, and entertainment industries.
With the purchase, Elloe will be able to extend beyond its present operations in Kenya and the Philippines and jumpstart its next stage of company growth by growing operations for its corporate clients.
“The addition of Flo by Saada technology fits perfectly into Elloe’s strategy and is a natural extension of Elloe’s offerings. It transforms customer interactions from simple communications to conversations across the spectrum of customer engagement points,” Sakawa said.
“With our conversational commerce capabilities, we are meeting new and existing customer needs now and are positioned to continue to meet their evolving needs well into the future, providing businesses with embedded commerce capabilities to simplify the way they serve, connect with, and sell to their own customers from anywhere, on any channel.”
According to Mwaniki, the goal of Flo by Saada was to assist companies in adapting to the growing popularity of instant messaging as the go-to method of communication for contacting loved ones as well as for obtaining prompt, attentive service from enterprises.
“We are excited to be joining the Elloe team. Combining our market-leading technologies presents an opportunity to create new, amazing customer experiences,” he said.
