The number of e-commerce businesses operating in Africa is growing daily. The ecosystem has become so competitive, threatening the survival of a large number of those businesses. In Kenya, a startup wants to use artificial intelligence and big data to help businesses avoid stories that touch.  

Lisa is a business assistant launched in January 2022 by Kenyan startup Phindor. By combining artificial intelligence and big data, it analyzes commercial data and network firms, service providers, and clients via its web/mobile platforms.  

Lisa, the startup founded in 2018 by Pheneas Munene (photo), anticipates shifts in demand and market trends by collecting online and offline market data, analyzing clients’ feedback, and organizing surveys. The business assistant also does so many things like forecasting business performance and recommending market segments to explore.

“It is usually a “wow” moment when we walk into someone’s shop and explain to them what the app can do. Surprisingly for us, we found out that most of the users had ideas of such a product but have never had a solution that fits all these needs in such a way they would adopt it. We have had challenges explaining the app to the least tech-savvy, but overall, the adoption has been smooth,” Pheneas said. 

Phindor started as a website allowing users to compare the price of school items. However, in 2018, its founder decided to offer data management and analytics services.  “We decided to work towards creating a simple, lightweight, and affordable app to help businesses capture data, keep it and use AI to draw insights from this data, just like giant companies are doing,” Pheneas Munene told Disrupt Africa. 

Thanks to Lisa, Phindor enables businesses “to apply the power of AI to make sense of this data by helping them segment customers in their markets, generate smart supply chain networks, analyze their markets and predict the future performance of their businesses, as well as track sale items over time to enable them to make proper purchase decisions,” he added. 

To access its services, users just have to chat with a dedicated chatbot or converse with the startup’s voice assistant. Once registered, users pay a flat US5 monthly fee plus a percentage of their monthly sales. 

According to Phindor, 500 users are already registered on Lisa. Its ambition is to expand into Rwanda, Nigeria, and Ghana but for that, it needs more funds. So, the startup hopes it will complete a funding round to raise US$100,000. 

Adoni Conrad Quenum