Bluechip Technologies, an African enterprise company that partners with international OEMs such as Microsoft and Oracle to provide data warehousing solutions and enterprise applications to banks, telcos, and insurance firms, has announced its European launch.
According to the Nigeria-based systems integrator, the strategic expansion positions it as a new competitive entrant in the EU market, offering data warehousing and analytics products as well as highly experienced senior data engineers from its Nigeria team as consultants for European firms.
Bluechip Technologies was founded in 2008 by Olumide Soyombo, one of Nigeria’s most prominent angel investors, and Kazeem Tewogbade. The firm focuses on data warehousing, analytics, and enterprise systems for banks and telecommunications companies. Bluechip Technologies began with a $5 million ($30,000 at the time) seed investment from Soyombo’s father, has grown to employ nearly 200 consultants, and expanded into other African markets such as Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and Ghana. FirstBank, MTN, 9mobile, Lafarge, GTBank, and Access Bank are among its pan-African and global clients.
Bluechip’s data warehouse product collects data from various sources and converts it into information that allows businesses to understand trends such as customer lifetime value, churn, and business analytics based on gathered data. Telcos also create airtime vouchers using its simplex voucher management system.
Bluechip Technologies is one of the few African tech companies focusing on training and placing data professionals, with its recently launched Primo Academy, a pipeline six-month program of data professionals (similar to an Andela-esque model) for itself, local and international partners.
According to Soyombo, the post-pandemic trend of remote working, a critical shortage of tech talent, and an increase in demand for more efficient data management present an excellent opportunity for his company to deliver specialized services in Europe (recent research projects the region’s big data and business analytics market size to reach $105 billion+ by 2027).
Furthermore, having delivered a range of enterprise tech infrastructure solutions in the African market in collaboration with international OEMs, the company believes it can do the same in Europe and intends to target the telco and banking sectors from its Ireland base.
Despite not being venture-backed (its business is such that VC money isn’t necessarily required to scale), Bluechip’s growth over the last decade has nearly mirrored the development of the African tech ecosystem and similar businesses in the same time frame. For example, when Andela first launched in 2014, it only had physical hubs in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda to source, vet, and train engineers for international companies’ remote teams. However, once fully remote, the unicorn saw a 750% increase in applicants from outside Africa as it expanded to over 80 countries.
“We want to try it out on the EU market and see how it works. The plan is also to expand further elsewhere like French-speaking Africa and possibly North America,” said the investor and co-founder.
The company made around $5 million in revenue in 2014. It brought in nearly $50 million last year. Soyombo anticipates that the company’s revenues will reach $250 million in five years due to its pan-African and global expansion plans.
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