The WhatsApp business OS for South Africa.
Track income, expenses, invoices, inventory and taxes. All through a WhatsApp message. Built for SA's 1.6 million informal businesses. Works in English, isiZulu & isiXhosa.
Built for the township economy
A business that runs in your pocket.
+R4,850
This month
PDF ready
March report
Imali
online
This week
R 4,820
POPIA-first
Explicit consent before any data is stored
SARS-aligned
Categories map directly to SARS schedules
Encrypted in transit & at rest
TLS 1.3 · AES-256
Meta Cloud API
Official WhatsApp Business integration
Running today on
Lending and insurance partners, including SA-native insurers and banks, are in active conversations and will be named on launch.
An essay in three frames
The South Africa traditional finance overlooks.
From the inner-city trading floor at sunrise to the craft sold on a Saturday pavement. Imali is a financial OS for the economy the banks have never been able to see.
Chapter 01
The inner-city trading floor, before the rest of the country wakes up.
Chapter 02
The spaza: where a rand is counted twice and every transaction is personal.
Chapter 03
The craft and the commerce behind it. The part the banks never see.
Editorial photography. Illustrative of the informal economy Imali is built for.
One app for everything
A complete business toolkit, inside a chat
No downloads. No logins. No learning curve. WhatsApp messages that replace your bookkeeper, your till system and your tax accountant.
Speak your numbers. Imali listens.
Type naturally in English, isiZulu or isiXhosa. Imali parses it, categorises it, and updates your books in under a second.
- Natural-language income & expense logging
- Receipt OCR that handles faded thermal paper
- Auto-categorisation aligned to SARS categories
- WhatsApp voice notes (coming soon)
R650 from Mrs Dlamini
09:12
✅ Logged R650 as income
March total: R18,420
R120 airtime
09:13
📱 R120· Airtime & data
Business expense · Category: Communications
How it works
From “never” to “every day”
in four steps
No downloads. No logins. No spreadsheets. Just WhatsApp messages that compound into a real business picture.
Message Imali
Save our WhatsApp number and send your business name. Imali greets you in your language and sets up your books in under 60 seconds.
Track everything
Income, expenses, invoices, stock. All logged with plain-language messages or a receipt photo. Imali keeps it clean and categorised.
Get insights
Weekly summaries, monthly PDF reports, and SARS-ready tax returns. Imali coaches you with cash-flow tips when it matters.
Grow capital
After 6 months of records, your credit profile is ready for SA lenders. Informal business, formal funding.
The opportunity, in four numbers
0+
SA informal micro-enterprises
Market size (StatsSA, 2024). Our TAM.
0
Languages shipped
English · isiZulu · isiXhosa
<0s
Onboarding, end-to-end
From first WhatsApp message to first logged transaction
R0/mo
Unit cost per merchant
At MVP scale. Margin-positive from day one.
Built for SA
Whatever you sell, Imali fits.
Every vertical has its own quirks. Imali is tuned for SA informal commerce, from the spaza on the corner to the kasi kitchen on a Saturday.
Spaza shops
Daily stock + till
Hair salons
Bookings & tips
Taxi ranks
Fares & fuel
Street vendors
Cash + M-Pesa
Kasi kitchens
Orders & ingredients
Tailors
Deposits & delivery
Car washes
Services & tips
Stokvels
Contributions & payouts
Six months of Imali = your first credit profile.
Most SA merchants are invisible to lenders. No bank statements, no formal books. Imali fixes that. Every transaction you log quietly builds a credit signal. When you're ready, you opt in and vetted SA lenders can score you. No more cash-based lockout.
- ✓You opt in.Nothing reaches a lender unless you tap “Share with lenders” in WhatsApp.
- ✓Never raw data. Lenders see a score and aggregates (revenue trend, consistency). Never your customers, products, or phone number.
- ✓We don't sell data. No data brokers, ever. Read the privacy policy.
6mo
to credit-ready
Opaque
merchant IDs only
3+
SA lenders in talks
Credit signal
Merchant 7F3A2B
Risk tier
A-
Low default risk
Monthly revenue
R24,180
Consistency
91%
Months active
8
Trend
+18% MoM
Pricing
Start free. Upgrade when it pays.
One tap to upgrade directly on WhatsApp via Peach Payments. Cancel anytime from the same chat. No contracts, no hidden fees, no surprises.
What happens at 20 transactions on Free? Imali sends a friendly WhatsApp reply: “Limit reached, upgrade to keep logging.” No hard lockout. Your next transaction is held until you upgrade or the month resets.
How do I upgrade? Reply upgrade on WhatsApp. Pay with Peach Payments (card or EFT). Access switches on within seconds. No email, no login, no app.
All plans: billed in ZAR, VAT-inclusive, cancel anytime by replying cancel on WhatsApp.
vs the rest
How Imali compares to what you have today
Works on a feature phone
- Imali
- Excel / paper
- Accountant
- POS system
No app to download
- Imali
- Excel / paper
- Accountant
- POS system
Logs in isiZulu / isiXhosa
- Imali
- Excel / paper
- Accountant
- POS system
Receipt OCR included
- Imali
- Excel / paper
- Accountant
- POS system
SARS TT03 tax return
- Imali
- Excel / paper
- Accountant
- POS system
Builds credit profile
- Imali
- Excel / paper
- Accountant
- POS system
Monthly cost
- Imali
- R0-R99
- Excel / paper
- R0
- Accountant
- R1,500+
- POS system
- R350+
Setup time
- Imali
- 60 seconds
- Excel / paper
- Hours
- Accountant
- Weeks
- POS system
- Days
| Feature | Recommended Imali | Excel / paper | Accountant | POS system |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Works on a feature phone | ||||
| No app to download | ||||
| Logs in isiZulu / isiXhosa | ||||
| Receipt OCR included | ||||
| SARS TT03 tax return | ||||
| Builds credit profile | ||||
| Monthly cost | R0-R99 | R0 | R1,500+ | R350+ |
| Setup time | 60 seconds | Hours | Weeks | Days |
Merchant scenarios
The problems Imali solves, in plain SA English.
Composite scenarios from pilot interviews with SA informal merchants. Named testimonials will be added as pilot participants opt in to share their stories.
Spaza-shop owner
Gauteng
Before
A notebook behind the counter. No idea what the month actually made.
With Imali
Types “R200 sold bread” on WhatsApp. At month-end, one message shows the total. No app. No login.
Food vendor
Ekurhuleni
Before
Paper receipts in a shoebox. No way to prove income when applying for credit.
With Imali
Snaps a photo of each receipt. Imali reads it, files it, and generates a PDF report the lender actually accepts.
Hair-salon owner
Cape Town
Before
Tax season meant panic, a shoebox, and a weekend lost to an accountant.
With Imali
Three staff log services from their own phones. SARS TT03 prep is generated automatically. Tax season is a non-event.
These are illustrative scenarios distilled from merchant interviews, not individual endorsements. We'll replace them with named, opt-in testimonials as the pilot rolls out.
Security & compliance
Six commitments, written into the code.
Financial data from SA's informal economy is personal. Here's exactly how we handle it: the technical controls, not the marketing slogans.
POPIA-first by design
Explicit consent before any data is stored. Right to erasure honoured within 72 hours.
Read the privacy policyEncrypted, end-to-end
TLS 1.3 in transit. AES-256 at rest. HMAC-SHA256 signature verification on every inbound WhatsApp message.
SARS-aligned categories
Expense categories map directly to SARS schedules. Generate a TT03 Turnover Tax return straight from WhatsApp.
TermsPOPIA-compliant data flows
Backend in Frankfurt (Render). Postgres on Neon, language understanding on OpenAI, cache on Upstash — all in the USA under POPIA §72(1)(a) specific consent + §72(1)(b) contractual necessity. Full residency table on the privacy page.
See where the data livesPII minimisation
Phone number held in clear text only where we must (to message you back); analytics warehouse holds a salted hash. Log lines mask the number to last 4 digits. Bank account: last 4 digits only.
K-anonymity on aggregates
Any partner-facing aggregate query requires ≥50 merchants before a result is returned. No individual merchant can be re-identified.
Imali is not a financial services provider and never holds your funds. A third-party security audit is planned for Q2 pre-launch; once complete we'll publish the scope & findings here.
Founder
Ebstar
Seoul ↔ Johannesburg
Who's building this
Built by an AI researcher for the SA his family knows.
Imali is built by Ebstar, an AI researcher and operator working between Seoul and Johannesburg. He's spent the last decade building at the edge of AI and cultural infrastructure: published in Neural Networks and IJCNN, advised South Korea's National Assembly, and shipped products to millions before turning his attention to the economy he grew up watching: South Africa's informal sector.
“1.6 million SA merchants run real businesses the banks can't see. Imali is the receipt they never got — and the credit profile they've always deserved.”
MSc Artificial Intelligence
Korea University · IEEE Fellow supervision
Published AI researcher
Neural Networks · IJCNN
Forbes BLK member
2024 cohort
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Can't find what you're looking for? Message us on WhatsApp. We usually reply within the hour.
Imali never holds your money. Not one cent. It only tracks it. Your cash stays with you, in your bank, or in your till. All we store are the records you logged yourself: encrypted, POPIA-compliant, and yours to delete anytime.
Never without your explicit opt-in. The credit profile shared with lending partners is anonymised behind an opaque merchant ID, and aggregate FMCG insights require a 50-merchant minimum (k-anonymity). You’re never personally identifiable to any partner unless you say yes. We don’t sell data to brokers, ever.
POPIA gives you the right to delete your data. Reply “stop” (or “delete my data”) on WhatsApp and we erase everything within 72 hours, except records SARS legally requires us to retain (financial records for 5 years). You can also reply “export” to pull everything as a CSV + PDF, or “nudges off” to stop the weekly reminders without cancelling.
No. Imali works entirely inside WhatsApp, the app you already have. Save our number, send a message, and you’re set up in under a minute.
Yes, forever. The Free plan includes 20 transactions a month, receipt OCR, on-demand monthly PDF reports, and three languages. SARS tax estimates, auto-emailed monthly PDFs, invoices and inventory are on the paid tiers (R29 / R99 a month). Upgrade only if you outgrow Free — straight from WhatsApp.
Most SA informal businesses under R2.3M/year qualify for Turnover Tax. Imali tracks your annual turnover live, alerts you when you approach tax brackets, and generates your TT03 return PDF at year-end. You still file with SARS. We just make it painless.
On the Premium plan (R99/mo) you can invite up to 3 team members. Each has their own role (Owner, Manager, Viewer) with clear permissions. You see every transaction; a manager sees only theirs.
English, isiZulu and isiXhosa today. Afrikaans is in review. We’re prioritising languages spoken in SA’s informal economy over “lingua franca” alternatives.