Tizeti is a Nigerian technology company that has one clear mission - to bring affordable and reliable wifi internet to Lagos, before moving across the country and beyond Africa. Unlike other telcos, who many think have a monopoly on internet data services in the country, Tizeti can keep costs low for its consumer-facing brand, wifi.com.ng, because it is investing heavily in building out its own solar-panelled network of towers across Lagos, as well as a network of over 3,000 public hotspots across the city.
Having graduated from famed Silicon Valley tech incubator, YCombinator, the team behind Tizeti have this week closed a $2.1m Seed investment round from Western Technology Investment, Social Capital, Vy Capital, Picus Capital, Ace & Company, Lynett Capital Partners, Zeno Ventures and a number of angel investors including Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel and Gabriel Hammond.
I recently spoke to Tizeti CEO Kendall Ananyi, looking at how the company intends on deploying this investment, as well as how they have overcome market challenges as they’ve grown.
Who is Tizeti and what is your mission?
Tizeti was launched in 2012 as a niche ISP to deliver internet to Estates but relaunched as Wifi.com.ng in 2014 to the mass market with the goal of providing a sustainable solution to the poor internet connectivity problems in Nigeria and Africa. We provide fast Wifi technology and unlimited, uncapped Wifi internet through our own solar power base stations.
Closing an initial seed fund round of $2.1M is impressive for an African start up. How do you intend on using this round of investment?
We are really pleased with this round of investment. It will help us to continue building our own solar powered outdoor Wi-fi infrastructure in Lagos to deliver unlimited internet, as well as supporting the launch of our new Xfinity Wifi-like Hotspot service, which will see the creation of 3,000 new public hotspots across Lagos.
Nigeria has the highest number of internet users in Africa. However, internet infrastructure within urban environments remains a challenge in the country and the continent. What steps has Tizeti taken to address this problem?
We have taken advantage of the increasing use of solar power across the region and the decreased cost of solar panels. These have been paramount in helping us build a dense network of towers to improve internet connectivity. The telcos build for coverage but we have the advantage of building for density using small cells (1.5km in radius) to provide more capacity to the user. We are on track to have more towers than a typical telco or towerco per sq km once we complete building our network in Lagos. We have also signed an IRU contract with a Submarine Cable provider to extend our service coverage through their fiber optic cable network to our Wi-fi towers to reach our more customers directly.
Since starting operations in Lagos, what major challenges have you faced, if any?
Initially powering the Wi-fi tower was the issue which we solved early on but now our biggest challenge is interference which affects the quality of the internet connection which we are now in the process of solving by licensing spectrum from the Nigerian government to cover Lagos, South West and South South regions. This does add pressure to our business model as license fees are hefty but are offset by the significant improvement in the quality of service.
We also struggled with getting financing at the right terms as inbound investment offers we got would have required us to alter our model to offer data-capped internet to meet our obligations. We politely rejected the offers and continued to bootstrap the business from revenue from the customers and improvement in online payments such as recurrent billings made getting payments ahead of time easier for us.
Tizeti is competitive in its pricing, in fact cheaper than some of the more well-known Nigerian telcos - how will you turn a profit?
Because we build our own solar panel towers, we aren’t restrained by costly wholesale internet costs from large telcos who have, until now, dominated the data market. The use of solar energy also reduces overheads on generators and diesel, which are often used across the continent to run towers. Therefore, running our internet network from our own infrastructure allows us to not only keep our operational costs low, allowing us to remain profitable, but we are also able to offer competitive prices to our customers. Currently our subscriptions start from N9,500 ($30 a month); which is approximately 30% cheaper than the large telcos.
What can Wifi.com.ng offer customers that other internet service providers in Nigeria and across the continent cannot?
We pride ourselves in providing an internet service that is not only fast, affordable, unlimited and uncapped, but is most importantly - undisruptive. Our public Wifi hotspots are also amongst the best in Africa and with our additional 3,000 new ones being launched, there will be no shortage of internet connectivity opportunities for customers.
Wifi.com.ng continues to expand across Lagos. Are there plans to scale the company across Nigeria and the rest of Africa?
We aim to be the go-to internet service provider in Lagos and ensure that we are fully functional here. We are however extending our services into the South-South region of the country; with a view to expand across the West African region over the next 18-24 months.
Email me: mfon.nsehe@gmail.com
