Flood, a category-defining SuperApp-as-a-Service platform, has raised as further $2.5 million in seed funding to expand its operations.
The funds, backed by CRE.vc and leading angel investors, follow a successful $1 million round in July 2024, and will be used to accelerate market entry and expand Flood’s partnerships with telcos and challenger banks while supporting the rapid onboarding of thousands of offline merchants.
Founded by serial entrepreneur André de Wet, Flood has rapidly gained traction in essential markets that include South Africa, India, and the Maldives, and is set to officially launch across a range of markets later this year. Designed specifically for emerging markets, the platform has seen significant user growth with daily usage as high as 28% of the population.
The platform also onboarded 8,000 merchants in just three months in one of its earlier engagements.
“95% of retail in emerging markets is still offline,” says André de Wet, CEO and founder of Flood. “Flood bridges that gap by embedding localised commerce, loyalty and payments directly into the apps people already use, such as telco and banking platforms.”
Flood delivers a white-label SuperApp-as-a-Service (S-AaaS) that allows telcos and banks to instantly embed digital commerce tools into their own applications. End users don’t have to download new apps to shop, earn loyalty rewards or make digital payments, instead they access everything through trusted platforms they already use. Built for enablement, Flood empowers institutions with large audiences to activate their existing user bases and monetise them far beyond traditional voice, data and savings products.
“CRE is excited to continue to support Flood as it executes one of the most compelling platform theses we’ve seen in emerging markets,” says Pardon Makumbe, Founder and Managing Partner at CRE.
“The promise of e-commerce has remained largely unfulfilled in emerging markets due to deep structural barriers. 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.
“As a SuperApp enabler, Flood offers a modular platform that empowers telcos, banks, and developers to launch vertically integrated commerce ecosystems by providing the infrastructure layer underneath. Through deep partnerships with telcos, challenger banks, and public platforms, Flood embeds digital commerce, loyalty, and payments directly into the apps people already use every day.”
For merchants, especially small businesses that make up the majority of economic activity in Africa and Asia, Flood offers a simple and accessible route to digital discovery and commerce: In-store QR codes, digital product listings, and tools designed for mobile-first access and fast deployment form part of the Flood ecosystem.
“We’re focused on empowering telcos and banks to empower their users, and do more with what they already have,” says de Wet.
“The goal is to make digital commerce accessible by giving these institutions tools to instantly offer local shopping, payments, loyalty and more. In one of our early markets, we helped process more than 14 million transactions for a population under 500,000 which translates to economic empowerment at scale. We’re also giving SMEs a smart way to grow while giving their customers more value and expanding their own revenue streams without needing complex infrastructure.”
Flood is also built on de Wet’s sterling track record. Behind some of Africa’s most recognised digital ventures, de Wet has created bold and practical solutions to some of the continent’s most pressing challenges. He developed and sold PriceCheck after scaling it to five million monthly users and winning App of the Year, and he led iflix’s African expansion and co-developed one of the first commercial MMS enterprise platforms in the world. He believes that in emerging markets, execution matters more than strategy, while crucially, distribution trumps innovation.
“Flood is about getting a merchant in Accra discovered on a digital platform or enabling loyalty rewards through a telco in Johannesburg. It’s about real-world solutions and execution,” he says. “Flood prioritises partnerships, a principle that has led to real-world performance and results.”
This mindset has driven Flood’s rapid rollout and partner-first model. Telcos and banks are often overlooked in the digital commerce race and are now given the opportunity to become effective digital marketplaces, generating new revenue streams, increasing engagement, and delivering value to SMEs in their ecosystems.
Flood’s S-AaaS model is changing how institutions digitise at scale by embedding seamless commerce capabilities into platforms people already use. It empowers SME growth, helps partners earn more, and provides value to users without added complexity.
With growing traction in Africa and Central America and bolstered by a partner-first roadmap for global roll-out, Flood is rapidly becoming the engine behind the new wave of localising digital commerce in emerging markets.
