Flood, a South African startup providing “SuperApp-as-a-Service” (S-AaaS) technology, has raised a $2.5m seed extension to help telcos and banks in emerging markets embed digital commerce into their existing apps.
The funding, led by pan-African VC firm CRE.vc with participation from angel investors, brings Flood’s total seed funding to $3.5m, following an initial $1m round in July 2024.
The capital will be used to accelerate Flood’s entry into new markets, expand its partnerships, and speed up the onboarding of thousands of offline merchants onto its platform.
At a glance:
- What is it? A white-label SuperApp-as-a-Service (S-AaaS) platform.
- Funding: $2.5m seed extension.
- Total Seed Round: $3.5m.
- Lead Investor: CRE.vc.
- Founder: André de Wet (founder of PriceCheck).
- Mission: To bridge the gap between offline retail and digital commerce in emerging markets by leveraging existing mobile and banking apps.
What does Flood do?
Flood provides a white-label platform that its clients — primarily large mobile network operators and banks — can integrate directly into their own applications. This allows their customers to shop from local merchants, earn loyalty points, and make digital payments without downloading a separate app.
For the telcos and banks, it offers a way to monetise their large user bases beyond traditional services like data or transaction fees. For the end-user, it brings the convenience of e-commerce into trusted apps they already use daily.
“95% of retail in emerging markets is still offline,” says André de Wet, founder and CEO of Flood. “Flood bridges that gap by embedding localised commerce, loyalty and payments directly into the apps people already use.”
The Problem with E-commerce in Emerging Markets
The investor thesis rests on the idea that traditional e-commerce models have failed to gain significant traction in many emerging markets due to deep structural barriers.
“The promise of e-commerce has remained largely unfulfilled in emerging markets,” says Pardon Makumbe, Founder and Managing Partner at CRE.vc. “The economics simply don’t work: fulfilment costs routinely exceed average basket sizes, and the infrastructure required to sustain traditional e-commerce models (like centralised warehouses and last-mile logistics) is expensive, slow to scale, and often out of reach.”
Flood’s model bypasses these issues by leveraging existing infrastructure: the merchant’s physical store for fulfilment and the telco’s existing user base for distribution.
What’s next?
The new capital will be used to scale operations in its early markets, which include South Africa, India, and the Maldives, and support its official launch in several new territories later this year.
A key focus will be on rapidly onboarding the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that form the backbone of these economies.
The company reports significant early traction, stating it has:
- Onboarded 8,000 merchants in three months during one pilot project.
- Seen daily usage reach as high as 28% of the population in one of its early markets.
- Processed more than 14 million transactions for a population of under 500,000 in another engagement.
A Founder with a Track Record
Flood is led by serial entrepreneur André de Wet, who is known for building digital products for the African market. He previously founded and scaled the product discovery and comparison platform PriceCheck to five million monthly users before it was acquired. He also led the African expansion for streaming service iflix.
De Wet argues that in emerging markets, “execution matters more than strategy, while crucially, distribution trumps innovation.”
Flood’s approach of partnering with institutions that already have mass distribution reflects this philosophy. Instead of spending capital to acquire customers for a new super app, Flood provides the engine for established players to become super apps themselves.