Participated · Seed · Jan 2022

ThankUCash, launched in 2018 by Connected Analytics, operates a multi-merchant rewards platform that lets customers earn loyalty points and cashback across thousands of merchants. Its consumer app has recorded over 600,000 users, onboarded more than 1,000 stores, and processed over $80 million in transaction volume. The company monetizes via merchant fees and commissions (for example, a 1.5% commission on certain cashback redemptions) and plans to charge onboarding/API fees for businesses using its services. With a 45-person team, ThankUCash is expanding within Nigeria (Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja) and into Ghana and Kenya, hiring regional leads for those markets. It is building out infrastructure products — rewards, deals, couponing, gift cards, buy-now-pay-later and a planned remittance product — and has signed a partnership with Interswitch while working on payments gateway and bank integrations. The team intends to keep the consumer-facing platform active while offering plugins and APIs that banks, fintechs and merchants can use to run cashback, loyalty and BNPL services. Thank U Cash is a Nigerian rewards platform that enables consumers to save and earn loyalty points that can be swapped for cash, while merchants benefit from increased spend. The startup was founded earlier this year by CEO Madonna Ononobi, CTO Surak Supekar and COO Simeon Ononobi. Lagos-based VC Ventures Platform announced an undisclosed investment on 11 October via founding partner Kola Aina. The company also received an investment from Nigerian VC Microtraction in August and is part of the second cohort of Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa, which kicked off in August. Crunchbase estimates Thank U Cash has raised $210,000 across three rounds. Microtraction’s website notes it ordinarily invests $65,000 in two stages with an initial investment of about $15,000, providing context on typical early checks.