Yazi, a Cape Town-based AI-native research platform operating through WhatsApp, has closed an undisclosed institutional funding round led by 3 Capital Ventures, an early-stage venture firm spun out of Allan Gray. The deal gives the company a pre-money valuation of R30 million ($1.6 million).
The investment marks a milestone for a startup that spent nearly four years navigating technical disruptions, uncertain revenue and repeated platform shutdowns before securing institutional backing.
Founder and chief executive Timothy Treagus said the journey to funding was far from straightforward.
“Yazi has raised its first institutional funding round, led by 3 Capital Ventures. It took almost four years to get here. And I mean almost didn’t get here four years,” Treagus said.
During that period, the company faced multiple existential setbacks when its access to WhatsApp infrastructure was abruptly cut off.
“There were three separate occasions where Meta shut down our WhatsApp number, killing the product overnight and bringing everything to a halt. I even wrote a memo describing exactly how and why we were going to shut down.”
Building research tools on the world’s most-used messaging platform
Founded in 2022 by Treagus and chief technology officer Mzwandile Sotsaka, Yazi has developed a research platform that allows organisations to conduct AI-moderated interviews, surveys, diary studies and panel research directly through WhatsApp.
The platform uses artificial intelligence to run conversational interviews with participants, probing deeper and following up in real time replicating the role of professional human researchers but at far greater scale.
The system can also run multi-day diary studies automatically, generating transcripts, identifying themes and producing presentation-ready insights without manual analysis.
Treagus argues the approach unlocks access to audiences that traditional research tools struggle to reach.
“WhatsApp is simply better for reaching the people that traditional research tools can’t. 3.2 billion people use it. It doesn’t need app downloads or email addresses or reliable broadband. If you want to hear from people the research industry has historically ignored, this is the channel.”
Operating across 15 countries with global clients
Despite its small size, Yazi has already built an international footprint.
The company operates in more than 15 countries and has access to a research participant panel of 1.8 million pre-qualified individuals across demographics and geographies.
Corporate clients include major organisations such as Old Mutual, Pick n Pay, Capitec, Discovery and global research firm Ipsos.
The startup’s seven-person team works from an office in Cape Town and more than 65% of its revenue now comes from international clients, according to the company.
Yazi operates within the global market research industry, valued at approximately $153 billion, yet Treagus believes messaging platforms remain largely untapped.
“We’re pioneering WhatsApp-native research in a $153B industry that’s barely touched messaging channels,” he said.
Funding to expand AI capabilities and African reach
The new capital injection will fund product development, including the launch of automated voice interviews through WhatsApp, as well as expansion of Yazi’s participant panel across Africa.
The company also plans to accelerate its international expansion as demand grows from research agencies in the United Kingdom and Europe.
The opportunity is significant. WhatsApp adoption is among the highest of any digital platform globally.
In South Africa, around 28 to 29 million people use WhatsApp, while the United Kingdom has about 41 to 42 million users. Adoption across Europe is similarly widespread, with approximately 33 million users in Spain and more than 50 million in Germany.
These figures underline the scale of a messaging-based research model that removes barriers such as app downloads, unreliable internet access or email requirements.
African innovation targeting global markets
Yazi’s growth reflects a broader shift in African technology entrepreneurship, where startups are increasingly building products for global markets rather than purely local use cases.
Messaging platforms, mobile money and AI-driven analytics have become central to a new generation of African startups seeking to bypass traditional digital infrastructure constraints.
For Treagus, persistence proved as important as technology.
“For a long time, Yazi felt almost make-believe. Just me in a bedroom, with wild revenue swings and the constant feeling that we could be here today and gone tomorrow,” he said.
“But we kept going — not because we had momentum, sometimes we had none, but because the conviction never wavered.”
He credited early personal support for keeping the company alive through its most precarious moments.
“I have to thank my wife Emma, the original investor. She covered the gaps when there was no income.”
Treagus also highlighted the role of co-founder Sotsaka in accelerating product development.
“My co-founder Mzwandile Sotsaka has driven our product velocity to the point where clients are constantly amazed at how fast the platform evolves.”
A new frontier for AI-powered consumer insights
As artificial intelligence reshapes industries ranging from finance to healthcare, market research is rapidly undergoing its own transformation.
Traditional surveys and focus groups are increasingly being replaced by AI-driven conversational tools capable of engaging millions of users simultaneously.
For startups such as Yazi, the convergence of AI, messaging platforms and global mobile adoption offers a new frontier for gathering consumer insight.
If successful, the Cape Town startup could help redefine how organisations understand markets while demonstrating how African-built technology can compete on a global stage.
