Impact

What clearer conversations unlock.

Africa is already trading. SanKam helps more people and businesses take part, within Africa and with the rest of the world.

£165B+

in intra-African trade, with the potential to go much further.

SanKam helps remove language barriers so more businesses can connect, negotiate and trade across borders.

Our vision is to help unlock Africa’s enormous untapped trade potential, enabling more people and businesses to participate in and benefit from trade within Africa and with the rest of the world.

12: languages in our launch plan, from Hausa to isiZulu
2,144: living languages spoken across Africa
54: countries building one continental market
30%: of the world’s linguistic diversity is African

Language is the hidden tariff on African trade.

Most cross-border deals are spoken, informal and full of market slang. Interpreters are out of reach for most traders, and general AI was never trained on how they talk.

5 to 12%

Language barriers can add significant costs to cross-border trade. Research estimates their trade cost equivalent at around 5 to 12%.

Source: Brenton and Isik, De-Fragmenting Africa, World Bank, 2012.

For the people who move Africa’s goods.

From market stalls to border posts, clearer conversations mean fewer costly mistakes and more customers.

Traders negotiating over printed fabric at a busy market

Cross-border trade

Prices, quantities, customs and payment, understood on both sides of the border.

Women traders

Most informal cross-border trade is run by women. SanKam lets them sell to customers they could not talk to before.

Language inclusion

Twelve languages in our launch plan, widely spoken and underserved alike. Each language pair is tested on its own and opens to traders once it meets our quality bar.

Twi Eʋegbe Yorùbá Hausa Kiswahili አማርኛ isiZulu isiXhosa العربية Français Português English

Understood by both tradersHausa and French

Price: ₦20,000
Quantity: 3 bags
Customs: Papers ready
Payment: Tomorrow

Each trader confirmed they understood

Illustrative. SanKam helps traders confirm they understand each other; it does not verify or validate the terms of a deal. Formal transaction verification is something we plan to develop later, as part of the wider trade platform.

Financial inclusion and learning

Fewer misunderstandings mean lower risk and wider markets for informal traders. The same layer can open education and knowledge across languages.

We measure conversations completed, trader satisfaction, interpretation confidence, corrections and market reach.

The free trade area is signed. Language is still the border.

One continental market: The African Continental Free Trade Area is lowering tariffs between countries. It cannot lower the language barrier.
Deals happen by voice, on mobile: Traders negotiate by talking, on the phones they already own. SanKam meets them there, with no typing.
Speech AI can finally keep up: Real-time interpretation is now possible, if it is trained on dialects, code-switching and market terms.
An African team, in African markets: Native speakers and local market insight shape the AI, from a team with roots in the markets it serves.

Partner with us.

We work with organisations across the trade ecosystem on pilots and partnerships.

Partner with us

Contact us.

For general and investment enquiries, write to us and the right person will reply.