Chekkit Technologies: Story, Founders, Investors & Funding Rounds

Chekkit Technologies was founded in 2018 by Dare Odumade with the support of Oluwatosin Adelowo and Samuel Ukhueleigbe as Co-Founders.

With its blockchain technology, Chekkit can monitor premium packaged goods and products through the unique tamper-proof ID it gives to individual products.

Chekkit is incorporated in Nigeria and the USA, with extensive experience working with small, medium, and FTSE100 companies across several continents with a particular focus on manufacturers/producers of consumer goods and pharmaceutical products.

Chekkit is also a platform that tracks product movement and the parties engaged in transporting products from the warehouse to the distributor and then to the final consumer.

The platform makes unique ID labels that can’t be changed, such as QR codes or numeric codes that can be put on expensive packaged food and drinks to track the supply chain and get customer feedback.

Chekkit has helped secure more than 50 million pharmaceutical and consumer goods products.

It is expected to grow even more now that Nigeria’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has ordered that pharmaceutical products implement end-to-end serialization and traceability.

How it Works

Consumer & Loyalty Program

You can automatically incentivize your end-consumers with instant rewards like airtime, cash, free products, merchandise, etc.

You can also reward consumer purchases with loyalty points which can be accumulated and redeemed for rewards items as listed above.

Asides from the fact that you can automatically acquire consumer contacts, Chekkit also helps you collect insights directly from your consumers using short intuitive surveys they take as part of their participation in your campaigns.

Deploy campaigns over the web, using ChekkitApp, USSD, SMS, or voice. So even if a consumer does not have a smartphone or access to the internet, they can still participate.

On your dashboard, you can monitor every penny spent and the consumers that got rewarded. You also get access to the data and insights gathered from your campaigns.

You can easily run scratch-and-win or dial-and-win campaigns, which are already popular and well-known by shoppers.

Chekkit provides you with scratch cards, sticker labels, and/or codes. You can also run leaderboards and raffle draws for mouth-watering grand prizes.

Chekkit will provide you with hand-held semi-automatic labeling machines (at a cost) and for label orders above 100,000,000 units (yearly), they will provide you with a fully automated labeling machine to be installed on your production line at no extra cost.

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Additionally, you get access to consumer data gathered during the process and you can also add surveys to the rewarding process to gather deeper insights about your consumers, their opinions, their preferences, and the market in general.

Anti-Counterfeit & Product Verification

Create unique IDs for unit products and batches as data matrix codes, QR codes, and PINs.

These unique identities contain all the useful information about your products like production/expiry dates, FDA number, and batch number, and are stored (hashed) on a blockchain network for security.

The unique IDs (QR code & PIN) get on your products using our special tamper-proof sticker labels made using taggants (“coded paper” that can’t be replicated by counterfeiters.

The product’s QR code and PIN are also hidden by a scratch-off panel to prevent compromise.

Consumers can either verify products with ChekkitApp by scanning the product’s unique QR code or by dialing a USSD shortcode with the product’s PIN (no internet required).

They then see if the product is original and if other product information is specified at creation.

Collect insights on side effects, consumer demographics, purchase preferences, and opinions using short intuitive surveys that consumers take when they verify your products.

All data collected from verifications and surveys are available on your Chekkit dashboard in real time.

The unique IDs created and authentications all happen on a blockchain network, ensuring your data is clean and uncompromised.

The QR codes and PINs are hidden on their sticker labels by a scratch panel. The consumer has to scratch the label to reveal the product’s unique ID.

Consumers can see information on the originality of the product, the expiry date, Product registration number, Batch Number, as well as other product information as specified by the manufacturer.

Chekkit’s security labels are made with a special material called taggants which counterfeiters can’t fake. As an extra layer of security, the label material can be verified with special handheld devices.

Chekkit will provide you with hand-held semi-automatic labeling machines (at a cost) and for label orders above 100,000,000 units, we will provide you with a fully automated labeling machine to be installed on your production line at no extra cost.

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In addition, you have full access to the details and data of people who have verified your products as well as data from surveys taken.

You can also easily communicate with them using bulk SMS right on your dashboard.

Their anti-counterfeit solution is ideal for products that are heavily counterfeited in the market like pharmaceuticals, FMCG, cosmetics, alcohol, chemicals, automotive parts, electronics, and so on.

Consumer Data & Insights

With data on demographics, location, etc you can clearly define who your consumers are and where they are.

Collect the feedback and opinions of consumers using short intuitive surveys and go deeper into their minds.

You can easily utilize this for product sampling, research, and understanding consumer preferences.

All your consumer contacts and data are in one place, segmented, and organized. Add new consumers automatically as they purchase.

Make visual sense of the data collected with interactive graphs, charts, and tables. Clearly understand purchase patterns, behaviors, etc.

Consumers take the surveys with their smartphones or by dialing a USSD shortcode so you can survey both online and offline consumers.

In the campaigns they have run to date, many of the clients have experienced between 60% – 80% engagement rates per campaign, clearly showing that Chekkit’s methods work. Furthermore, you can use incentives as a motivator for their feedback.

Additionally, they always advise between 2 -3 questions per survey with each question carrying 3 – 4 options so drop-off rates do not skyrocket.

You can also create an unlimited number of surveys and have access to the responses of consumers.

Direct Marketing & Engagement

Collect and maintain contact details of consumers as they buy and engage with your products online or offline.

Communicate regularly with millions of consumers at once using our secure bulk messaging system.

Segment your consumers into groups and communicate better with personalized messages.

Schedule messaging campaigns, continuously survey the consumers you’ve acquired, and analyze the effectiveness of your marketing.

Chekkit is more than just bulk SMS because they allow you to also acquire consumers who buy your products in markets, malls, traffic, etc, and then re-target them with our bulk SMS feature.

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They have discovered that messages on birthdays, public holidays, and religious celebrations are quite key to maintaining an emotional connection with consumers.

Also, marketing communications like the announcement of new products, new outlets that stock your products, campaigns, discounts, deals, etc help to encourage repeat purchases.

If you already have a database of your consumers or contacts you would like to send messages and surveys, simply upload a file containing the contacts and you can start engaging them immediately.

Engage your consumers with USSD shortcodes and applications tailored to your brand that consumers can dial to participate in surveys, games, promotions, etc.

Founders

Dare Odumade

Dare Odumade is the CEO at ChekkitApp.

Oluwatosin Adelowo

Oluwatosin Adelowo is a Co-Founder and CMO at Chekkit.

He has done this for over 8 years now and one thing he has learned is that there is usually no one proven growth strategy/tactic.

Thankfully, with his Engineering background, he is very comfortable working with numbers and process improvement.

Investors & Funding Rounds

Launch Africa, Japan Strategic Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund

Chekkit Technologies has announced a $500,000 pre-seed round as it looks to expand its team and technological infrastructure.

Pan African VC, Launch Africa, Japan Strategic Capital, Blockchain Founders Fund, and two syndicate groups of angel investors participated in this round. The company also received a grant from Netherlands’ Orange Corners program.

Chekkit has secured over 7 million pharmaceutical products, protected over 200,000 consumers, and expanded its partnership with the Afghan government to verify and track over 200 million products.

Additionally, it has worked with pharmaceutical companies like Merck, Royal Star Pharma, and Nabros Pharmaceutical in Afghanistan. Chekkit has also worked with Indomie, Nivea, and Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc.