Viamo
Location
Democratic Republic of the Congo and more
Sector
Other Social Infrastructure and Services
Type of Investment
Risk Capital
Project Stage
Length of Investment
2021+
Website
Investment Overview
GIF invested $1.5 million in Viamo; a social enterprise that improves access to information, education, and vital services by making it easier for governments, multilateral agencies and civil society organisations to communicate with disconnected stakeholders through innovative mobile technology in local languages.
The Development Challenge
People who have no access to knowledge and information, such as the internet, are limited in their capacity for social and economic development. By linking people to communication processes and media, Communication for Development (C4D) plays a crucial role in the development process. Because of low literacy rates, poor infrastructure and high language diversity, reaching poor populations in poorer countries is challenging, expensive, and often fraught with inefficiency in terms of targeting the right audience and measuring effectiveness.
The Innovation
Viamo offers mobile technology solutions to mission-aligned organisations to help them design, implement, and measure mobile engagement campaigns and provide life-enhancing information that targets populations in emerging markets.
Mobile phone network expansion and lower ownership costs over the last decade offer an advantageous and complementary new channel of outreach, engagement, and behaviour change for low-income populations. Mobile communication solutions can be delivered through several outlets, such as voice (IVR or Interactive Voice Response), SMS, USSD or digital applications that use mobile internet. Overall, the case for using mobile technology is for wider access and scale, speed and cost-efficiency. Particularly in situations like the Covid-19 crisis, where the speed and agility of public outreach and data gathering played an important element of overall policy and public health response.
However, digital/internet-based technology solutions, while addressing some of the challenges of traditional communication channels, are limited in their outreach by data connectivity, smartphone ownership and literacy/digital know-how of end-users. Viamo’s breadth of technology solutions allow its customers to adopt more digital orientated communications strategies, whilst also harnessing the power of more traditional mediums and channels to reach those most in need.
Our Investment
Viamo is using GIF’s investment to expand and deepen its operations and continue to develop and innovate its product offerings for its customers.
Investment Objective
GIF funding will help scale Viamo's work, expanding its footprint in existing and new markets, and establish stronger consumer engagement through technology development.
Why we invested
The main channel of impact on GIF target beneficiaries of those living on less than $5PP/day is through Viamo’s work with its clients to improve poor people’s access to information and aid their decision-making, in a way that then improves their overall access to markets, goods and services. GIF’s investment will help Viamo amplify the impact of many development sector innovations, as well as help improve transparency and data-driven cost-effective decision making.
Viamo in numbers
GIF investment