Jongla secures $5.3 million funding to expand in Nigeria

A Finish social messaging start-up, Jongla, has secured a $5.3 million (€5 million) Series B investment round, to scale up its business across emerging markets, namely, Nigeria, Brazil, Turkey, India, Indonesia and other African countries. According to a statement released on Thursday, the company said the new capital brings the total funding it has closed to date to €12 million. 

As Jongla looks to get a large share of the African messaging market, the Helsinki-based company launched its instant messaging app in Lagos in April, enabling users in Nigeria and across Africa to send and receive unlimited free text messages, stickers, photos, videos. Jongla says it has the world’s lightest messenger because its messaging platform is suitable especially for emerging markets where people have low-spec smartphones with limited data or slow internet connection. The Jongla Social Messenger has features that enable users discover new and interesting people around them. 

“Messaging apps are the new ecosystem for the next generation of apps and services. Our team of investors have seen first-hand the positive direction the messaging business is heading in and they want to enable the next chapter of the Jongla story,” said Jongla founder, Arto Boman. 

The Series B funding round was dominated by Finnish investors Circlion Capital Oy, Matti Kallio, Henry Sjöman, and Kontino Invest Oy. Others include Arto Boman, Gustav Nyberg, Kristian Pentti, Takoa Invest Oy, Ingman Finance Oy, and JSH Capital Oy.

“We have seen rapid growth this year, driven by the demand for light and social apps in emerging markets”, says Riku Salminen, CEO of Jongla. “This Autumn alone, our users have sent three times the amount of messages – the uplift has been huge. Among our top countries are now Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey, Iran, India and Indonesia – all emerging markets, which alone cover 2 billion of total population.”

Earlier this week, a global technology, media and telecoms research and advisory firm, Ovum, said mobile subscriptions in Africa will rise to 1.33 billion at the end of 2021, while smartphone connections on the continent will reach 929.9 million by 2021.

Jongla social messaging app so far has one million downloads and 21,748 ratings with a 4.0 average in the Google Play store. The app is available on Android, iOS and Windows Phones. Its competitors are WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, Facebook Messenger, among others. Nevertheless, the company is positioning itself as the go-to messaging app for emerging markets.

“With the new capital and through new strategic partnerships, our aim is to further leverage AI and bots that we believe will revolutionize messaging between businesses and consumers,” said Boman. - See more at: http://www.financialnigeria.com/jongla-secures-5-3-million-funding-to-expand-in-nigeria-africa-news-968.html#sthash.LKSUki8K.dpuf