Quidroo is an online factoring platform where transactions are streamlined and SMEs get paid within 72 hours by selling their invoices to investors to get fast cash at favorable rates. Quidroo is 'women first' and focuses on SDG 9.3 Increasing the proportion of small-scale industries with access to finance in developing countries and SDG 8.3 Increasing the proportion of people with access to financial services.

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At Quidroo, our long term goal is to be the premier online factoring platform in Africa that supports small and medium businesses in accessing quick, easy and transparent short term financing. Our target is to have 50,000 SMEs using our platform by 2026.

We have in the process of developing our first MVP. We currently have 2 users that support over 90 farmers and we currently operate in Abuja, Nigeria. We have not raised any external funding for Quidroo, all the funding has been from the personal savings of the co-founders.

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Earlier this year, we participated in the Stellar Blockchain Bootcamp by DFS Lab to build our Stellar integration and won a prize worth of $5,000.

Problem and Solution

According to PwC’s MSME survey of 2020, there are 17.4 million SMEs In Nigeria, and even though small and medium businesses contributed 48% of national GDP, accounted for 96% of businesses and 84% of employment, it is often difficult for them to raise working capital. The traditional method is expensive, slow and paper heavy. Also, according to The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, 82% of SMEs fail due to cash-flow issues while waiting 30, 60 sometime 120+ days for vendor payments, yet there are trillions in A/R monthly in Nigeria.

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Quidroo is an online platform where transactions are streamlined and SMEs get paid within 72 hours by selling their invoices to get fast cash at favorable rates. Our customers are the Nigerian SMEs, who find it difficult to raise working capital for their business. Our online, no collateral, invoice crowdfunding marketplace offers a fast, less expensive, secure and automated environment where transactions are streamlined and SMEs get paid faster by selling their invoices for fast cash offers at favorable rates.

How does Quidroo use Stellar

Quidroo needs to be accessible not only to Nigerians but potential users all over the world. But there is the challenge of cross-border payments and local fiat currencies limitation where Investors outside Nigeria would find it difficult to fund their Quidroo wallets. Moreso, our transaction process is relatively simple and logical, however, it can be marred by the lack of real-time mechanism to track the invoice throughout the whole process journey, thus opening up the whole process to high risk of fraud, the need for manual documentation. This is very time consuming but can be avoided or mitigated using the Stellar Blockchain Technology to:

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• Provide access to Users anywhere in the world through integration with various Stellar Anchors
• Provide conversions of currency to enable withdrawal and deposit for Users in their Local Currency using Stellar path payment.
• Initiate transactions and raise invoices through Stellar distributed blockchain ledger
• Eliminate manual verification as blocks on the chain are independently verified via end customer and client communication on the Stellar blockchain.

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Thus, based on the above needs/solution which can be clearly met using Stellar, Quidroo can achieve her goal to optimize for quick, transparency, and efficiency of invoice financing for SMEs.

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Target Market

Our target market is the 17.4Million SMEs in Nigeria. The market size for our offering is $2.46 Billion as of 2020.

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Revenue Model

Our Revenue model is 3 fold:

1. We have a subscription fee for SMEs that want to use our platform, the subscription fee is N10,000/ year.
2. Management fee that the Investors need to pay to be able to bid for invoices on our marketplace. The subscription fee is N60,000/year
3. Auction commission is what Quidroo earns from transactions. Currently pegged at 10%

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Pricing and Financial Plan

We are currently not profitable but will be by end of year 1 if we have 2,800 customers. With average transaction size of $10,500 and Customer MoM growth rate of 10%, and an average invoice discount rate of 7%, we will achieve Net Income of $112,573K. By year 5, if we grow our client base to 274,000 customers we will achieve Net Income of $64,989,866.

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Industry and Market Research

Whereas bank financing has for a long time dominated global trade finance, factoring is one of the fastest-growing instruments for structured trade finance in the world. The global factoring market was valued at $2.92 trillion in 2017, according to data by Factors Chain International (FCI) – a global association of institutions offering factoring services, setting industry standards, and engaged in training and capacity-building.  

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According to the Managing Director for Intra-African Trade Initiative, African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), Africa’s factoring volumes grew from $16.8 billion in 2009 to approximately $25.17 billion in 2017. In 2018, Africa’s factoring volumes grew further by 2 per cent; but the continent accounted for only a meagre 0.8 per cent of the global value, which grew to $3.11 trillion, according to FCI. Europe dominated with 66.1 per cent share; and Asia-Pacific, 24.1 per cent. The projection is that the market will grow at a CAGR of 14.6 per cent to $9.3 trillion by 2025, according to Adroit Market Research. By 2020 the global market grew to $3.32 trillion, for Africa $31.58 billion. The serviceable market for Nigeria for 2020 is $2.46 billion

Competition

Some of the startups playing within the invoice factoring industry include Lidya, SukFin, Acudeen amongst other players. However, none of them are women businesses focused nor have a good grasp of the Nigerian Market.

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Marketing and Sales

1. There are 17.4 million SMEs In Nigeria who need access to working capital on a daily basis and our go to market strategy is 3 fold: Lead Generation, Key Partnerships and Marketing Communications.
2. For Lead generation it includes direct approach to SMEs, Vendors and Investors, Promotions on LinkedIn, Angel Networks, Partnerships with Banks, Lending Houses, SMEDAN, Chambers of Commerce, Partnerships with Accountants, Lawyers and Offer of referral fees
3. For Key Partnerships it includes Partnerships with Banks, Lending Houses, SMEDAN, NEXIM, IFC, Partnerships with Chambers of Commerce,
4. Office of SDGs, Partnerships with Women focused organizations like WIMBIZ, AWEC, AWIEF, ALL
5. For Marketing Communications it includes Social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & YouTube), Go Mobile, Promotions on LinkedIn, Press (e.g. Business Day etc.), Build Quidroo Community, Create content, webinars

Our competitive advantage include:

• Our SMEs get paid within 72 hours, cutting waiting time by at least 90%
• Depth and breadth of experience of our co-founders
• Our "women first" focus means we are going to have a desk focused on female owned SMEs
• Quidroo Risk Assessment score that is generated internally taking mix of public and private information. This will help in reducing default risk

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Resources and Relationships

Quidroo is also a product of Silicon Valleys' Founders' Institutes (Lagos) pre-seed accelerator program where our solution has been vetted and validated by over 20 mentors, directors, and industry CEOs. Not only has FI provided the right structure, but they have provided the right information and training to ensure that our organization succeeds and is able to make the necessary impact in our society.

1 Frontend Engineer     $4,500
1 Backend Engineer  $4,500
1 Blockchain Engineer $4,500
1 Product Designer  $4,500
Marketing & Ads $12,000
Server/Domain   $5,000

https://www.app.quidroo.com/