By Prince Osuagwu

Barely three years old in the Nigerian Value added service market, selling bulk SMS, tech startup Sleengshort has started climbing the stage to the top of the market with a whopping N1.2 billion worth of bulk SMS sales by end of business year, 2023.

After hitting the sales mark, the company has started putting plans in place to expand its business base, targeting to replicate the success story of tech solution provider, Twilio in the United States here in Africa.

Twilio is a US-based company with a valuation of $7.23 billion that provides customer engagement functionality used by developers worldwide to build unique communication features and capabilities like voice, text, chat, video, and email into their applications.

Sleengshort was founded by Agbeyeke Ndubuisi and Oyelere Oluwabiyi in February 2022 as a vendor offering bulk SMS to individual customers and small businesses that want to push their products to clients’ mobile devices.

In July 2022, the company presented its business plan to an investor who helped it secure an aggregator license, enabling it to transact directly with telecom operators like MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile. Apart from the license, they also needed to purchase a significant amount of SMS to qualify for the big market.  They secured both the license and an investment of N250 million in bulk SMS. 

In 2023, the company’s client list grew to include major fintechs operators and some financial institutions and they closed the year with N1.2 billion in bulk SMS sales.

Founder and CEO of Sleengshort, Agbeyeke Ndubuisi said the platform has remained a go-between for the telcos and the corporate entities that require bulk SMS to keep in touch with their vast network of customers and because it knows its onions, immediately it opened shop, to users began to subscribe its services and “by the end of 2022, we had done about 50 million naira in bulk SMS sales”.

On expansion plans, he said: “Nigeria is the company’s priority, but other African countries like Kenya are also on the company’s agenda. However, there is still so much we need to do in Nigeria. We are coming up with some announcements before the end of the year,” he added.

Also Co-Founder Oyelere Oluwabiyi, who doubles as Chief technology officer of the company said what has kept the company attractive to corporate entities, is the ability to manage its cost. He said: “The technology that powers the platform Sleengshort rides on was built and maintained locally. The larger practice by other players is to lease platforms from providers outside the country leaving them with a foreign exchange burden to acquire and maintain the platform in dollars. 

“The advantage is that since we developed it here, we learn and improve on our product. We essentially grow with the product. We started small and as our traffic keeps increasing we are also thinking of better ways to scale our platform to accommodate more traffic and perform optimally,” Oluwabiyi said.