Termii, a Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) startup, co-founded by two Nigerians have grabbed the interest of Y Combinator and has successfully graduated as one of the winter batch 2020 of Y Combinator.
Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups, twice a year $150k is invested in a large number of startups. The startups move to Silicon Valley for three months, during which the startup has its pitch refined and presented on Demo Day to a carefully selected, invite-only audience of investors.
After Demo Day, YC and the YC alumni network continue to help founders for the life of their company, and beyond.
Getting shortlisted for the programme saw the co-founders spending three months – starting January – in the Bay Area. Incidentally, Demo Day was done over video because of coronavirus (COVID-19) scare.
Apart from the opportunity to raise funds later, Termii will get $150,000 investment in exchange for 7% equity.
Founded by Gbolade Emmanuel (CEO) and Ayomide Awe (CTO) in 2014, and followed by a rebranding in 2017, the startup appears to have evolved to build a niche in providing dependable communication channels for African businesses.
Apparently, Termii got admitted into YC only a few months after it bagged funding from Future Hub backed by Transsion, as well as an investment from Microtraction.
Now a Delaware company having operations in Silicon Valley with a primary focus in Africa, Gbolade affirms in a comment to Techpoint that Termii will still be operating across multiple locations with a particular focus on Nigeria where the main market share is.
According to Techpoint Africa, Termii joins the list of Nigerian startups like Paystack, Flutterwave, Tizeti, BuyCoins and others that have passed through and graduated from Y Combinator, the San Francisco based startup incubator.
