Caantin Secures AI-Driven Solution to Revolutionize Communications

 

 Zambian AI communications startup, Caantin, aims to reduce the cost of phone calls for businesses by using AI voice agents capable of handling conversations at scale.

Communication is essential for many businesses. From fintechs encouraging users to complete signups or repay loans to FMCG brands seeking daily orders from small shops, phone calls are crucial to daily operations. Traditionally, this task has been managed by large or outsourced call centers, or in-house support teams, which come with overhead costs, hiring difficulties, and limitations—after all, humans can only handle so many calls in a day.

Caantin, a new AI communications startup, believes it has found a better solution: AI voice agents capable of conducting conversations at scale.

Launched in 2021, Caantin’s first version was Topup Mama, a procurement and management software for restaurants. Now, the Zambian startup, self-described as an AI communications company, says it aims to reduce the cost of phone calls for businesses.

“Businesses struggle to scale for several reasons, and when you dig into it, you find that it’s a communications issue—the cost of communication,” said Njavwa Mutambo, CEO and Co-founder of Caantin. “We help businesses communicate with customers in an intelligent, contextual, and cost-effective way.”

TechCabal tested Caantin’s highly human-sounding AI voice bots by posing as a small shop trying to place orders. Despite a few communication gaps, the conversation felt natural. The call included the intonations, pauses, and unintentional interruptions of a real-life exchange. The AI chatbot is capable of conversing in several major African languages—Igbo, Hausa, Swahili, and Yoruba.

Mutambo claims the startup has helped its clients improve efficiency. For instance, he says Caantin enabled Nigerian fintech Cowrywise to make 100,000 calls with just one employee, a task that would typically require 30 employees over a three-month period.

Voice as the entry point While AI applications in Africa remain in their early stages—largely due to the high costs associated with building and running models—Mutambo believes voice AI will become the dominant form of AI in Africa. With low smartphone penetration, inconsistent internet access, and high illiteracy rates in many regions, Mutambo sees voice—rather than text or chat—as the most practical interface for mass AI adoption.

“Voice is how AI will be distributed in Africa,” said Mutambo.

However, beyond developing voice bots, Mutambo stresses that the key is to create context-specific use cases that align with how businesses operate in Africa. For Caantin, this means designing voice agents that can handle tasks such as driving collections, completing sales processes, and reducing the cost of customer support at scale.

For example, Caantin’s voice bot can prompt users to make payments during calls, using webhooks to integrate with payment providers like Paystack and Flutterwave.

Caantin also plans to add a feature that will analyze large volumes of phone conversations to derive insights that businesses can use for decision-making.

How Caantin generates revenue Caantin generates income by charging businesses per second for phone calls, much like a telecom provider. In South Africa, it charges four rands (2 cents) per second; in Nigeria, about ₦117 (7 cents) per minute—roughly nine times the rate of a local telecom provider.

Mutambo justifies the pricing by highlighting the broader costs businesses typically face when running large customer support operations.

“When you do the math, you have to account for staff salaries, power, internet—basically all the overhead it takes to run a call center,” he said. “Most chief commercial officers we work with view AI as a tool for cost-cutting, not a cost center.”

Caantin’s pitch is that the higher per-minute rate is balanced out by the scale, consistency, and 24/7 availability provided by AI voice agents, all the hidden costs of managing human teams. The company claims it is currently profitable.

Competition and differentiation Caantin’s main competitors are traditional call centers—Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies—and global players like YC-backed Bland AI. Unlike its global competitors, Caantin has been developed with an African context in mind. The chatbot understands local dialects, accents, and speech patterns more effectively than generic language models.

Caantin’s plan to offer an analytics feature places it in direct competition with ToumAI, a Moroccan AI startup that collaborates with businesses—including telecom providers, banks, and call centers—to gather and analyze voice data.

Fundraising and future plans The startup secured an undisclosed funding round from Ventures Platform earlier this year. While Caantin’s goal is to make startup customer support more efficient, we asked if this signals the end for BPOs.

“BPOs will need to adapt or struggle to survive,” said Mutambo. While Caantin’s AI is not perfect yet, when it is, call centers won’t just be in trouble—they’ll be obsolete.

 

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