How-to Guide to Briter Intelligence

and why we need more and better data on underserved markets.

Briter
6 min readJun 9, 2020

A comprehensive document to understand functionalities and use cases.

What is Briter Intelligence (BI)?

In May 2020, Briter launched Intelligence, a digital, real-time market insights platform focused on business and investment activity across underserved markets (UM). Phase I in the life of BI specifically addresses the informational gap in Africa. BI was ideated as the direct continuation and expansion of the research and mapping work our team at Briter Bridges has been doing over the 20 months since its inception. To date, Briter has been committed to producing the knowledge infrastructure needed to better understand the business landscape across these markets, and it counts hundreds of industry mappings, reports and research endeavours with stakeholders ranging from academia to corporates and development finance institutions.

Why BI?

Opportunities across underserved markets are to be considered ‘unknown unknowns’ due to the lack of information that precludes access to the critical knowledge needed to make decisions. Simply put, more information drives better decision-making and better decision-making leads to a healthier business. A significant part of the deal flow, both at early and later stages, remains undisclosed due to sensitivity or strategic reasons, and the lack of appropriate openness prevents new possible players from engaging in these markets. BI offers a readable and flexible tool to address the lack of information across these markets by providing a real-time, customisable, business ecosystem tracker.

What is BI for?

  • Insights on industry trends and investments across underserved markets
  • Follow and track the development of a wide range of verticals and overall industry developments
  • Boost Sales Pipeline
  • Scouting and Deal Flow
  • M&A and Strategic Partnerships
  • Market Sizing and Competitor Analysis
  • Interactive Market and Ecosystem Overview
  • Expand Professional Network

What is BI and what features does it offer?

  1. Free sign-up, Interactive Dashboard and Advanced Filters: BI is dedicated to a wide range of actors who actively do business, produce research on, and invest in underserved markets. To facilitate this, BI offers areal-time, fully interactive data visualisation platform that adjusts to an advanced filter mechanism and allows extremely specific and multiple queries. You can sign up via email or Google and start navigating the platform for free.

2) Deals Tracker: Keep up with funding rounds across Africa. A one-stop-shop for investment information and a live funding clock with constantly updated and aggregated data.

Deals Tracker

3) Match: Briter turns Tinder for fundraising, deal flow, and market landscaping with our Match function, which allows users to find and compare companies, investors, and other stakeholders based on a range of data points, from industry to impact focus. The right column shows the matching organisations (4 possible categories: companies, investors, hubs, or NGOs), the degree of matching, and useful links or contact details for a quick outreach.

4) Manage your company: Dedicated to founders, investment and hub managers, our Manage company function allows verified users editing permissions to keep their companies’ profiles up-to-date.

5) Enhanced company profiles: BI has divided company profiles into sections in order to allow quick access and sorting.

6) Intelligent Market Landscape Generator: BI’s algorithm automatically sources local and international competitors depending on data points such as markets of operations and products.

7) Impact Performance Indicators: A dedicated dashboard for impact metrics helps impact-focused investors and organisations find companies focused on socio-economic issues from serving rural population to reducing emissions. The section also includes a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Tracker to quickly identify organisations working towards them.

8) Investors and Hubs’ Portfolios: Find investors’ portfolios and quickly understand each investor criteria and market appetite by accessing their investees’ profiles, as well as the respective Fund Details and Impact focus.

9) Request Updates or Manage your own Company: Briter strives to provide highly reliable information about business in target geographies and industries. To guarantee a strong interaction with users, new functions offer admin permission for verified users to manage their own companies, hubs, and funds, or to request updates if data seem obsolete or inaccurate.

10) Live Month-over-Month Investment Chart: a first in Africa’s tech ecosystem, the real-time MoM Investment Chart provides a quick snapshot of funding trends on the continent.

11) API and SaaS solutions: Intelligence offers a customised solution for clients and partners needing dedicated access to data, interfaces, and data points based on needs. Get in touch with our team for more info.

12) Assessment / Support Tool: An easy-to-use interface was added for users to be able to outline the milestones achieved, type of support sought and received. This, together with identifiers about 1) product development; 2) revenue generation, 3) legal registration, and IP, will serve as assessment panel for anyone interested in understanding more about a company’s stage. Hubs and investors (last picture) will be able to provide information about their criteria, while companies and startups will have to indicate what type of support they are looking for and what milestones they achieved.

*The Assessment / Support tool will be used to match companies (who will add info about the support sought and milestones achieved) with hubs and investors interested in these parameters.

More data, more regions, and functions are coming. Keep an eye on the developments!

We are looking for feedback and suggestions on how to improve the platform and provide better and more insightful data. Get in touch!

More about Briter Bridges.

More guidelines: check out 21 Steps to Navigate the Platform.

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Briter

Briter provides research and insights into innovation and industry trends across emerging markets.