With the hundreds of thousands of businesses that the Corporate Affairs Commission registers annually, the Nigerian economy and the GDP should be booming, but this is not the case. Statistics suggest that about a third of these businesses crash within the first 18 months, and another 20% crash before they clock 5 years.

Several others struggle for years, hardly growing from micro and small businesses to become the medium-scale businesses that the economy needs to advance. Still stuck at the micro-level, most of them do not get to the point of employing people and paying them well. It is to help businesses like these that Pennee Technologies exists.

Co-founder and CEO of Pennee Technologies, Mejero Emmanuella Kunu, was a guest on the Nairametrics Business Half Hour and explained that Pennee had sprung up to provide support to small and micro-businesses and help them advance to a point where they survive, grow and create better employment opportunities for others.

No economy can survive on just big businesses, or small businesses, so there is the need to push and support the small businesses to become medium businesses that can make some significant impact on the economy. Kunu and her Co-Founder started Pennee in 2019 to provide this much-needed support.

What kind of support can small businesses get when they decide to sign up with Pennee?

One complaint common to small businesses is the inability to access much-needed loans to scale and grow their operations. Pennee is solving this by giving them asset-based loans and overdrafts.

“We don’t want that kind of situation where someone presents the business to secure the loan, and spend it on something else. Any loan we are giving has to go straight into the business, buying assets, restocking etc, and our target is to improve your productivity so that you can easily repay,” Kunu said.

Sales and inventory management is also part of the package Pennee offers. With Pennee, small businesses can automate accounting, store transaction history, and download financial statements. This takes the huge burden of organising the books off business owners so that they can focus on running the business. Pennee also provides them with a mobile wallet for transactions, backed by Providus bank, and allows them to receive payments via transfers and cards.

“You might not be able to open a corporate account due to stringent requirements but you can open a corporate wallet with Pennee easily, and over time, have access to loans and overdrafts. You can save in your NUBAN assigned wallets and earn interests,” she explained.

Another critical support the business owners get is business intelligence and analytics which equips them to make better decisions. They can understand where their customers are coming from, where and when they make the most sales, how to target their ads, what products need to be purchased in larger quantities; and make decisions based on these, instead of randomly guessing their way through and groping in the dark.

There is also customer relationship management where Pennee helps businesses acquire customer information and use it to better manage the customers. They also get access to lots of resources that guide them through everyday business challenges.

“The core target is to help business owners become more business savvy, make better decisions and have the resources to actually grow the business.”

The money story

When Pennee started in 2019, the loans for business owners were sourced via peer-to-peer funding, where those with excess money supported those in need. In spite of the COVID-19 challenges of 2020, this model remained solid and most business owners adapted to the new normal quickly, moving their businesses online and selling items that were in high demand.

To support the peer-to-peer model, Pennee also keeps a decent 80:20% ratio on wallet deposits and transactions which is used to give asset-based loans and overdrafts to these businesses.

The company is also currently raising a seed round to get more funding and Kunu says, “Sustainability and scalability are some things investors look out for, and we have proven that we can execute what we are saying. I think this is what investors will be looking out for. We are also on the lookout for investors that really get our vision and want to be a part of it.”

Pennee intends to be serving 1 million businesses across Africa within the next five years since the small business challenge is common to developing economies.