Project Stage
Category
Based in
Team size
Active since
Problem
Currently, there is no way for online businesses to accept online payment in Ethiopia. Despite businesses providing their services online, they all have to find a way of accepting money.
Eg 1: Sports betting companies only operate through physical stores due to lack of online payment options. They can only accept payment over the counter.
Eg 2: Ride hailing drivers have to physically/over the counter buy “Ride Miles” from Ride hailing companies before the driver can make a trip. Online payment would solve this challenge.
This issue has made it difficult for companies to operate online and has slowed down the development of the online economy in Ethiopia.
Solution
Windpay connects businesses and individuals through its super app and facilitates payment between the two. Windpay is aiming to be the Alipay of Africa.
How does it work/ customer experience?
As mentioned above our customer segment is divided into two: Online businesses and Individuals.
How and why we used Stellar
We are going to issue a stablecoin that is tethered to the Ethiopian national currency Ethiopian “Birr” and maintain the equivalent fiat reserve with our partner bank (in progress). Our plan to enable our customers to recharge and withdraw (on off-ramp) is through the following methods:
The reason we used Stellar:
We’ve been working on Windpay since 2019 following a number of pivots and forging new partnerships.
Stage: We are on track to complete the Beta version by the end of December and start piloting in early January.
We have roughly 30 ride-hailing drivers ready to pilot our superapp in our January launch.
Funding: We have raised a total of $45K. A pre-seed of 40K from investors and a $5k grant from Stellar through DFS Lab bootcamp,
We incorporated in the USA and we are currently finalising our incorporation in Ethiopia.
Acceleration program: Joined Orange Fab, subsidiary of Orange Telecom and Orange ventures which will give us access to investment communities, legal council, business development and technical advice.
Using our existing network: we plan to leverage the strong local and international networks of our existing investors for raising seed funding and ease operation locally.
Partnerships: We are in talks with various online businesses such as Betway for exclusive service delivery.
Policy and regulation_: _We have a positive relationship with government representatives and strong legal support.
Staff: We already hired 2 software developers, making our team a total of 7. We still need to hire 5 more software developers to continue building and innovating our product.
Finance: We have enough funding from our pre-seed to launch our pilot but are looking for additional funding to onboard more developers and expand agent networks to improve delivery of our service
Our ultimate goal is to be able to host millions of businesses in Windpay, to help them provide services and accept payment online. We are starting one business at a time. For that reason, we decided to do our pilot program on the ride hailing sector that desperately needs alternative online payment solutions. The Problem we identified in this sector is below:
Context: Ride Hailing is a thriving industry in Ethiopia, but drivers and ride hailing companies are losing time, money and users to poor payment methods.
Problem: Ride Hailing drivers have to purchase “Ride Miles” from Ride Hailing Companies to start accepting clients through the Drivers App. To buy Ride Miles, Drivers must deposit money to the Ride Hailing Company Bank account, send proof of payment, and wait from 2- 9 hours to receive “Ride Miles” on the Drivers App. They cannot take on clients through the app until they have received the “Ride Miles” so drivers and the Ride hailing companies lose time and money.
Pain Point: Slow and time consuming payment process meaning fewer clients
Solution: We will support ride hailing drivers and companies by:
1. Allowing drivers to add money to windpay app and buy “Ride Miles” instantly
2. Offering BNPL option to enable drivers to buy “Ride Miles” on credit
Drivers can also access additional payment features like Airtime Top and Sending Money to other Windpay users.
We are going to issue a stablecoin that is tethered to the Ethiopian national currency Ethiopian “Birr” and maintain the equivalent fiat reserve with our partner bank (in progress). Our plan to enable our customers to recharge and withdraw (on off-ramp) is through the following methods:
Our initial customers will be the Ride Hailing Drivers
Ride Hailing Companies are beneficiaries of our service
Note: We are making things freemium for the piloting program.
Our piloting program will be freemium.
Predicted Transaction Volume: the potential transaction volume of the ride-hailing sector. Currently, there are around +100K Ride hailing drivers each buying Ride Miles of $85 per month on average. There is a potential of transacting $8.5 million per month. We are confident that the majority of drivers will use our app because the incumbent process consumes the time and energy of the drivers.
For 12 months our costs are as follows:
Cost Break Down in USD
Total Capital (Pre-seed): $40,000
Allocation Pilot Programme: $16,000
Other Costs: $24,000
Capital cost: $19,628.00
Fixed Cost: $17,102
Variable Cost: $3,612.00
Total: $40,342.00
Deficit: $342
Profit: $0
Strengths:
Product versatility, the app can be adjusted to offer multiple services, Ability to host millions of apps (online businesses)
Weakness:
Access to human capital, funding
Opportunities:
Threats:
Political instability
Competition is growing due to the size of the opportunity in Ethiopia: key competitors currently are Telebirr that just started operations a few months ago and M-pesa (Billion dollar company) that will start operation next year.
Target Market: Ride Hailing Drivers
Ride-hailing drivers typically don’t use email, they do have smartphones and use Telegram Messenger and groups to communicate.
Marketing strategy: Door-to-Door & Referral Incentives. We will have to speak directly to many drivers to onboard them and get them ready to use the app. We will also utilise a referral incentive strategy e.g. gaining free Ride Miles for every driver who signs up.
Digital Strategy: We will leverage Telegram Messenger Marketing Campaigns to communicate to the various drivers through their support and communications groups. We can broadcast messaging to up to 500K people in a matter of minutes with Telegram at no cost.
Our goal for the pilot is quite small at maximum 100 users in 6 months so we are confident that these two approaches will assure us success and allow us to engage with customers and gain more learnings about improving the app. Once we have the customer database, we can communicate updates, changes and additions to the app and as we onboard more services it will allow us to retain customers beyond their needs as ride hailing drivers.
We are looking for $31,500 in funding from Stellar to expand our development team and continue building and testing our product.
Social Media: https://twitter.com/SmilePay_App
Muluken Mengesha Bekele
CEO
Muluken is a co-founder/CEO of WindPay. Graduated with a degree in Business Management from the African Leadership University in Mauritius. Muluken is primarily responsible for business development, UI/UX, raising capital and stakeholder management. Muluken is passionate about technology, entrepreneurship and fintech.
LinkedIn or other social channel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mulukenmengesha/
Eyob Mengesha Bekele
Eyob is a co-founder of Smile-Pay and leads the system architecture and design for the super app. Eyob is skilled in data management and systems building. He is a computer science graduate from Hilco School of Computer Science and Technology - Ethiopia.
Salim Abdella Nuru
Salim is a co-founder and leads the WindPay team as a CTO and is in charge of building the core payment infrastructure for the application. Salim is a creative software developer and has a special interest in cyber-security. Salim is a certified penetration tester from Trend Micro. He is a computer science graduate of Hilco School of Computer Science and Technology - Ethiopia.
Fikremariam Awoke
Fikremariam is a co-founder and is a qualified developer specialising in mobile app development. Fikremariam is a computer science graduate from Hilco School of Computer Science and Technology - Ethiopia and is passionate about fintech as a tool for development.
Clarke Dhana
Clarke is a co-founder of WindPay and leads the branding, marketing and communication efforts as well as supporting the team with design and business development. Clarke is a graduate of The African Leadership University and is passionate about empowering entrepreneurs in Africa with fintech solutions. Clarke is skilled in marketing particularly social media and digital media platforms within the African context.
The USD valuation of the budget request in XLM will be calculated using the CF Stellar Lumens-Dollar Settlement Price on December 5, 2022 as administered, maintained, and reported by the cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks Ltd. (using the ticker “XLMUSD_RR”) (available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/indices/XLMUSD_RR). Learn more in the SCF Handbook.
*The USD valuation of the award in XLM is calculated using the CF Stellar Lumens-Dollar Settlement Price on July 5th as administered, maintained, and reported by the cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks Ltd. (using the ticker “XLMUSD_RR”) (available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/indices/XLMUSD_RR)
**The USD valuation of the award in XLM is calculated using the CF Stellar Lumens-Dollar Settlement Price on December 16, 2021 as administered, maintained, and reported by the cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks Ltd. (using the ticker “XLMUSD_RR”) (available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/indices/XLMUSD_RR)
*The USD valuation of the award in XLM is calculated using the CF Stellar Lumens-Dollar Settlement Price on September 27, 2021 as administered, maintained, and reported by the cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks Ltd. (using the ticker “XLMUSD_RR”) (available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/indices/XLMUSD_RR)
* The USD valuation of the award in XLM is calculated using the CF Stellar Lumens-Dollar Settlement Price on the date of transfer as administered, maintained, and reported by the cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks Ltd. (using the ticker “XLMUSD_RR”) (available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/indices/XLMUSD_RR)
*This budget request has not been fully awarded to the project. The USD valuation of the budget request in XLM will be calculated using the CF Stellar Lumens-Dollar Settlement Price on day of payment as administered, maintained, and reported by the cryptocurrency index provider CF Benchmarks Ltd. (using the ticker “XLMUSD_RR”) (available at https://www.cfbenchmarks.com/indices/XLMUSD_RR). Learn more in the SCF Handbook.