Up until 2013, African startups weren’t too keen on expanding to other African countries and the international space. A major reason for this is that Africa is fragmented and this poses a challenge for global companies looking to enter the African market.
Also, there was no single platform to access information on how to enter the African market. For instance, If a company plans to scale into Africa to enter five countries, they would have to communicate with multiple lawyers, multiple advisors, and multiple regulatory bodies to be able to set up their business across Africa.
Coincidentally, startups based in Africa also struggle to expand their operations. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was introduced in 2019 to boost trade, economic growth, and integration across the continent.
Sadly, it has had less impact than expected. For this reason, Sidebrief was founded to share a roadmap on how to effectively expand across jurisdictions without having to hire numerous people in those places.
Sidebrief was cofounded by Eunice Olopade(CEO) and Abudulwaheed Yusuf(COO) in 2019 as a Reg-tech startup that provides effective ways to streamline compliance for businesses in the 54 markets of Africa. The regtech startup also assists African founders with incorporation, tax registration, tax returns, and overall structuring for those that have their holding companies outside the continent, like Delaware, US. Simply put, Sidebrief was built to bridge the gap in market entry and business compliance by African startups across several countries in Africa. Soit primarily ensures that clients and prospective clients are up to date on their business compliance requirements while running their businesses. Moreover, the platform not only gives access to the necessary information and assists companies with all the steps but also saves businesses the stress of having to make any contact with the organizations issuing licenses or permits.
Due to the low-trust nature of the African market, Sidebrief issues invoices on request, and arrange virtual calls or physical visits for negotiation before commencing its processes. As soon as a client pays for its services, Sidebriefengages the regulatory authority on behalf of the client to get the requested document and upload it into the customer’s account. The duration and cost of their services are determined by the market and services required.
As a result, the prices for their services differ across markets but they offer one-time fees and bundled services that depend on whatever services are added ( Entity Incorporation, Tax Registration, and IP Registration are just the basics). Currently, they are moving towards a uniform fee( product priced) across markets. Similarly, this will create a synergy in such a way that the fragmented nature of the African market will not adversely affect its offerings. In addition, Sidebrief is expected to roll out its cross-border tax management product offering.
Finally, their Services can be delivered between 24 hours to a few weeks and could cost between $200 to $5,000.Sidebrief is working to cover all 54 African countries but now it boasts of having capacity in over 30 countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, and Zambia.
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