SEOGidi launched on August 1, 2022, as a search engine marketing company aiming to scale struggling startup businesses in the African tech space. Within the first year, the company made giant strides.
Wole Oduwole, the founder, successfully onboarded 36 startups within SEOGidi’s first year of launch—a decent number to start with.
Speaking on the challenges, Wole stated, “The startups have various needs based on their respective industries. Creating a strategy for each was tedious. Being an experienced thought leader who has worked with several agencies, I was used to a heavy workload—but this was different. For some businesses, we had to redefine their Unique Value Proposition. Within my first year of operation, I’ve realized that many startups fail at the ideation stage. Unknowingly, they still go ahead to invest their money and launch.”
According to the founder, they have carved a niche in marketing technology. SEOGidi is now often referred to as “SEO for Startups & Businesses.” With the rising competition in B2B marketing, which has traditionally been dominated by marketing agencies, Wole has stepped in to make a change. He reiterated, “We’re not a regular marketing agency; we work actively with you. In fact, we’re building a next-gen marketing platform powered by your business, you (the business owner), and AI. Automation in the SEO industry might seem far-fetched, but I can tell you SEOGidi is close to that landmark.”
“We’re currently at the testing stage, and before the last quarter of the year, we’ll be integrating AI fully into our platform to help businesses access automated SEO features that can scale up their organic reach,” he added.
“According to publicly available statistics, African startups have raised nearly $15 billion since 2019. Of this total, Nigerian startups raised $4.4 billion, making Nigeria the continent’s largest tech startup investment destination. Other contenders include Kenya with $2.9 billion, South Africa with $2.4 billion, and Egypt with $2.3 billion. These top four countries raised a total of 85% of the funds. Now, the question is, what is the ROI? What is the current valuation of these startups? Something needs to be done to make these huge investments worthwhile. As of today, we’ve onboarded over 100 startup businesses, and I can confirm three have secured investments, and a good number are thriving on bootstrapping.”
“It’s a myth to say the African market isn’t ready. We need to change our approach to the market. I’m confident in seeing how the African tech space will fully evolve, but we need key marketing technology platforms like SEOGidi to gatekeep the industry.”
SEOGidi is currently bubbling under the radar as one of the startups to look out for in 2024. Companies like SEMrush and Ahrefs, which are strongholds in the SEO industry, might be direct competitors.
However, Wole clarified that their offerings are not the same and that his company has a Unique Selling Point that appeals to the African market and beyond.
