Founded in 2015 by Oshone Emmanuel Ikazoboh, Zoto launched to become one of Nigeria’s leading mobile phone recharge solutions. Zoto provided you with the fastest & safest way to recharge your mobile phone in Nigeria. The arrival of Zoto ended the long recharge card purchase process for millions across Nigeria, especially at odds hours. Zoto was reported to have been doing so well in its growth scale. In fact, between 2016 and 2017, the Mobile recharge and payment solution was said to have processed about 5 million transactions.
The Startup Target:
Located in Lagos State, Nigeria, via its web app platform, Zoto was created to be your number one choice for conveniently processing Mobile recharge. The startup envisioned a Nigeria where people could efficiently, quickly and securely process airtime transactions without any hitches at any time of the day. Using Zoto, you only need to set up a profile and input your card details. Once profiles are completed, users can recharge their phones with just a few taps—no need to deal with scratch cards and locate airtime vendors.
Zoto Success Ride in 2017
2017 was a year to remember for the Mobile recharge and payment solutions platform. In that financial year, Zoto announced 56 and 200 per cent growth in its transacting user base and order volume. The fintech startup processed 5 million transactions in the last year, which was expected to grow 300% to 15 million in the financial year 2018/19 due to the growing volume of electronic payments by Nigeria’s young and digitally savvy mobile users.
The Fate of Zoto
Spiked by its successful ride in 2016/17, Zoto planned to expand vertically and horizontally by adding more categories and increasing the number of merchants in each category on its platform. However, those plans would not see the light of day the following year. It was reported on many news platforms in 2018 that the growing startup went off the radar.
Experts believed the startup’s problems began in May 2018 when many users began complaining about their inability to transact on the app, some even losing money. These complaints were reportedly met with an unusual silence from Zoto customer care, and up-to-date, the official Twitter and Facebook pages have not been posted since June of 2018.
Unscaled is our latest web series focused on the stories of unsuccessful, unique startups and analysing several factors that caused these startups to fail. Join the waitlist for our newsletter.
