Across Africa, people are already trading: market to market, border to border, in thousands of languages. SanKam exists so that language never decides whether a deal happens.
The problem we see every day
Cross-border trade in Africa is spoken, informal and fast. Prices, quantities, customs papers and payment terms are agreed in conversation, often between people who do not share a language. Professional interpreters are out of reach for most traders, and general-purpose AI was never built for the way African trade really sounds.
The result is lost value: misheard prices, misunderstood terms and customers who walk away.
What we are building
SanKam is an AI-powered speech-to-speech platform. Two traders, one phone, no language barrier. Each speaks in their own language and hears the other in theirs: speak, interpret, hear and reply, trade.
It is built for real-world trade, including places where the connection is weak, and twelve languages are in our launch plan, from Hausa and Yorùbá to Kiswahili, Amharic and isiZulu. Each language pair is tested and opened as it meets our quality bar.
Where we are going
We are starting with traders and businesses at the border. Over time, we are building the multilingual language infrastructure for African trade: a layer that marketplaces, fintechs, logistics companies and institutions can build on.
Our vision is to help unlock Africa’s untapped trade potential, so more people and businesses can take part in, and benefit from, trade within Africa and with the rest of the world.
We will share our progress here: pilots, partnerships, reflections and what we learn about African languages and AI along the way.