meQasa Raises $500k Investment from Frontier Digital Ventures
meQasa.com, one of Ghana’s leading online real estate classifieds businesses, has secured an investment amount of $500,000 from Frontier Digital Ventures, a global VC firm headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Frontier Digital Ventures’ portfolio includes companies in five key frontier regions including Central America, Middle East & North Africa, East Africa, West Africa and South Asia. The investment from Frontier Digital Ventures will be utilized to expand meQasa’s sales, marketing and technical output.
“We have built the platform and developed the technology to be a leader in the real estate classifieds market in Ghana but as is the case with most startups, funding was a major obstacle that limited our growth. We’re thrilled to have been on the radar of an international investment company such as Frontier who saw the value in our efforts and chose to invest in our potential,” says Kelvin Nyame, CEO of meQasa who founded the company along with two other technologists, Rashad Seini and Kofi Amuasi after they completed a 2-year intensive tech entrepreneur training program at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST). The company received initial seed funding from the Meltwater Foundation and is currently housed at the MEST Incubator in Accra.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with the meQasa team. The business has a great platform in place and is moving in the right direction in what we see as a truly dynamic market in West Africa. The combination of our experience and funding along with meQasa’s passion and commitment makes for a great opportunity to build a market leading business in Ghana.” — said Frontier Digital Ventures CEO, Shaun Di Gregorio.
Seeking housing to rent or purchase in Accra and many other major cities across Africa has proven to be very difficult with the limited technological tools and platforms available to aid with searches. meQasa has impacted the real estate industry in Ghana by providing a free service that helps brokers, landlords and other real estate professionals conduct business efficiently online as well as simplifying the search experience for prospective tenants.
meQasa produces the Design Accra symposium focusing on real estate and development design trends in Accra and has partnered with Ghana Real Estate Professionals Association (GREPA) to develop one of Africa’s first central real estate property databases.
Data from June 2014 show there are over 5 million internet users in Ghana, grown from 30,000 in December 2000. That’s about 20.1% of a population of about 25.9M people. This number is only set to grow as more internet service providers as well as internet companies, like meQasa.com, with businesses relevant to Ghanaians’ everyday life emerge.
UPDATED: Initially, the amount for the round was undisclosed; that’s how come the first line read as such. It has been updated to reflect the amount stated in the title. Sorry if the heading sounded misleading.
