This Ghanaian startup is constructing an AI “glass field” for enterprise information

Earlier than co-founding Papermap.ai, an AI-powered no-code enterprise intelligence platform, in July 2025, Simeone Nortey, a software program developer, discovered himself spending much less time coding and extra time answering questions from work colleagues. The advertising and marketing staff needed information insights, however getting these solutions normally meant digging via databases or operating complicated queries. 

It’s a well-recognized state of affairs in lots of rising companies. Engineers need to spend their time writing code, whereas everybody else simply desires clear solutions from information. To bridge that hole, firms usually depend on dashboards, rent analysts, or put money into costly information instruments, options that may be sluggish, complicated, and dear. 

For Papermap.ai, a Ghanaian startup working throughout Africa and the US, the answer could lie in an AI agent that understands how enterprise customers truly speak. 

In response to Isaac Sarfo, co-founder and CEO, Papermap’s AI doesn’t simply reply to English prompts. It understands Pidgin, Twi, French, and different pure languages, permitting non-technical customers to question firm information as they’d ask a colleague.

Nevertheless, Papermap didn’t begin as an AI analytics firm. 

“We initially began by constructing a listing administration platform powered by AI,” Sarfo instructed TechCabal in an interview. “However we rapidly realised that the upside for analytics made a complete lot extra sense.”

Stock, he explains, was just one information pipeline. Most companies sit on a number of streams of information, from funds and customers to adverts and operations, that not often join cleanly. At the moment, Papermap is a no-code information platform that lets firms centralise their information and question it with out hiring a knowledge staff.

As an alternative of utilizing SQL, which specifies what information to retrieve slightly than methods to retrieve it, or Python, a flexible programming language, customers can merely ask questions in pure language. Papermap’s AI brokers generate the code, pull the related columns, and return charts, insights, or reviews in actual time.

Why pure language issues

For Papermap, “pure language” isn’t just a person expertise function. “It may be Pidgin. It may be Twi,” Sarfo says. “I can ask it a query in Twi, and it’ll act as a knowledge analyst and pull the info I’m in search of.”

That localisation displays a broader thesis: Throughout Africa, superior analytics faces main hurdles: excessive prices, restricted expertise, and difficult information environments. In some nations, broadband alone can eat up 44% of month-to-month earnings; fewer than 5% of younger folks have superior information or cybersecurity coaching, and roughly half of massive‑information tasks fail or stall because of complexity, talent gaps, and costly setup. Very similar to cell cash allowed the continent to bypass conventional banking infrastructure, Sarfo believes agentic AI can assist startups skip the costly information stacks that dominate the US market.

This localisation displays a broader perception about why many African companies battle with information analytics. The problem just isn’t solely value, but in addition complexity and context. Sarfo argues that simply as cell cash allowed the continent to bypass conventional banking infrastructure, agentic AI can assist startups skip the costly, technical information stacks widespread within the US. 

By assembly customers the place they’re linguistically and operationally, Papermap goals to make information much less intimidating and extra usable, opening superior analytics to companies that may in any other case be locked out.

“We truly consider ourselves as that complicated information infrastructure,” he mentioned. “The distinction is that we summary away the troublesome a part of the work.”

A “glass field” different 

As information volumes explode, Sarfo cites estimates that over 80% of world information has been generated in simply the previous few years, and conventional analytics workflows have gotten tougher to maintain. Engineers are writing code quicker, however analysing the info behind it’s lagging.

Papermap’s reply is what Sarfo calls a “Cursor for information”: a software that accelerates evaluation for each non-technical customers and skilled analysts. 

“We’re extra of a glass field AI,” Sarfo mentioned. “While you ask a question, you possibly can see precisely what occurred, the tables it pulled from, the code it wrote.”

Papermap’s major prospects are growth-stage companies caught in what Sarfo calls the “infrastructure hole”: too giant for spreadsheets, however unable to justify a six-figure information engineering staff.

Within the US, the corporate targets companies incomes between $10 million and $100 million in income, a phase that represents roughly 10% of SMBs however accounts for practically half of GDP and employment.

Africa, nevertheless, calls for a special strategy.

“In Africa, it’s extra of an API play,” Sarfo says. As an alternative of promoting on to 1000’s of retailers, Papermap embeds its AI inside platforms that have already got scale.

In Ghana, Papermap works with VDL Success, a achievement firm serving over 5,000 retailers. Retailers can now ask questions immediately inside the platform, corresponding to what number of orders have been fulfilled, what failed, and what’s delayed, with out ready for assist groups. A multi-tenant structure ensures strict information separation.

In Nigeria, Papermap companions with fintech firm Wallets, serving to it flip fee information into forecasting and credit-underwriting instruments for retailers. One other partnership with healthtech startup DoktorConnect goals to let customers question private well being information and obtain AI-generated insights forward of physician visits, a undertaking that might ultimately attain tens of millions of scholars.

Localisation additionally shapes how Papermap distributes its product. With WhatsApp dominating communication throughout Africa, the startup is constructing a WhatsApp connector that permits enterprise homeowners to textual content questions like, “How a lot cash did we make this week?”

Behind the scenes, the AI writes the code, runs the question, and returns a solution that may inform actual choices, with out dashboards or exports.

“Our objective is to speed up AI adoption on the continent,” Sarfo says, “and assist information be used extra in day-to-day enterprise decision-making.”

Papermap’s first backer is Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist. The corporate mentioned it raised $500,000 pre-seed spherical in August 2025 and plans to lift a $5 million seed spherical later this yr.

Coverage, nevertheless, stays a problem. Sarfo argues that innovation is shifting quicker than regulation throughout a lot of Africa. Whereas he sees progress, he believes governments want to interact extra severely with AI as a foundational know-how.

Papermap says it has already begun working with public establishments. On January 8, 2026, one pilot with a division of Ghana’s Ministry of Finance replaces lots of of Excel sheets utilized by district assemblies to report undertaking spending, decreasing errors and dashing up reporting via AI-driven workflows.

Six months into energetic operations, Papermap’s progress has not been frictionless. 

“We had a very good product, however the go-to-market has not been the simplest,” Sarfo admits. Nonetheless, utilization metrics are climbing, with extra energetic customers, longer periods, and more and more complicated queries.

API partnerships, specifically, are accelerating adoption quicker than conventional SaaS gross sales globally.

For Sarfo, success comes down to at least one consequence: companies making choices based mostly on information, not guesswork. “Each enterprise needed to turn into an web enterprise,” he says. “AI would be the similar.”