Lagos-based startup Terragon has secured an undisclosed investment from VestedWorld, an Africa-focused early-stage investment fund manager. The firm announced the partnership on 30 June 2021.
VestedWorld has invested in Terragon to further increase the company’s geographic reach, expand its product suite and develop new partnerships.
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Understanding the African consumer
Founded in 2011 with the vision to become the leading marketing technology company in Africa, Terragon offers a consumer insight and activation platform that aggregates, organises and enriches customer data to help brands better understand the African consumer.
Terragon helps big brands better understand the African consumer
The company currently operates across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, SA and Egypt. Users receive personalised engagement from brands through preferred channels and are offered relevant products and services.
Despite increased penetration of mobile and high-speed internet across Africa, brands have struggled to engage digitally with consumers. Lack of actionable customer data, efficient digital channels and engagement tools are leading factors for the slow adoption of digital and mobile marketing on the continent.
Terragon has developed the tools to gather, aggregate and monetise first-party data collected directly from customers, and allows advertisers to effectively target prospective customers and measure the effectiveness of their ad campaigns.
Digital marketing is seeing profound change as companies like Google, Apple and Mozilla implement data privacy policy changes to phase out third-party cookies. Growing awareness of privacy issues raised by the European Union’s General Data Protection (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive is expected to make third-party data increasingly scarce.
Terragon’s platform allows businesses to engage in digital marketing while ensuring the interactions are data privacy compliant, without relying on third-party cookies. The platform has amassed more than 100 million user profiles across Africa and plans to scale this number as it expands into new markets.
Co-founder and Managing Director Elo Umeh stated, “It’s really important to me as an entrepreneur to work with investors that share my vision. The company is at a point where we’ve been able to build capacity and forge partnerships which have also positioned us as a preferred go-to partner for global big tech companies working to solve Africa’s peculiar data and consumer marketing challenges. It’s a testament to the very high standards we’ve set and within which we operate. This investment from VestedWorld will empower us to continue to build and accelerate the progress we’ve made so far – in terms of our Pan-African market expansion, business growth, product development and talent sourcing.”
VestedWorld has deep experience investing in early-stage, technology-enabled businesses across Africa, including stakes in Viamo, Vanu, Sendy, Kasha and DrugStoc.
“The shifts occurring in the advertising industry are hard to ignore and we believe that it’s only a matter of time before the transition to digital advertising is fully embraced across the markets where we invest,” said Euler Bropleh, founder and Managing Director of VestedWorld. “We’re confident that the Terragon team has built software that can play an essential role in the evolution of digital advertising across the continent and are excited to partner with them to help scale their solution across Africa.”
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Featured image: Lagos Techie via Unsplash
