For decades, one of retail’s biggest frustrations has remained the queue. Whether in a grocery store, convenience store, or pharmacy, the wait between picking up an item and paying for it often feels longer than the shopping experience itself. SKAAP, a mobile scan-and-go checkout startup, wants to rebuild this experience.
The startup, led by CEO and Co-founder Samuel Odeyemi wants to replace queues with a seamless, smartphone-enabled checkout journey that takes seconds, not minutes.
In this edition of Techparley’s DRIVE100, where we spotlight Africa’s most promising startups, we explore how SKAAP is eliminating retail queues through mobile self-checkout.
“SKAAP is a mobile self-checkout platform that lets customers scan, pay, and walk out without waiting in line. SKAAP eliminates the queue entirely, and transforms a customer’s phone into their checkout system,” Ayo told Techparley.
What You Should Know
According to SKAAP, consumers want speed, autonomy, and a smooth experience. Retailers want higher throughput, less labour pressure, and happier customers.
Yet traditional POS systems and bulky self-checkout kiosks have not kept pace. They are slow, expensive, rigid, and designed for a retail landscape that no longer exists. SKAAP’s answer is to eliminate the queue entirely. SKAAP transforms the smartphone into a personal point-of-sale system.
Key Features
- Mobile Scan & Go – Customers scan items with their phones and pay instantly.
- Smart Cart – Automatically totals items, manages promos, and reduces scanning errors.
- Digital Receipt & Wallet – Real-time receipts with loyalty and wallet integration.
- Lightweight Retail Integration – Works with existing POS and inventory systems.
- Theft-Aware AI Layer – Intelligent risk scoring to help retailers manage loss prevention.
Core Benefits
- Zero-minute checkout for a radically improved shopping experience.
- Higher customer throughput and shorter in-store visits.
- Reduced staffing pressure and labour cost.
- Increased revenue through fewer abandoned baskets.
- A modern, innovative brand image for retailers.
In essence, the team says SKAAP makes physical retail feel as fast as online shopping, powered entirely by the customer’s own phone.
A Different Kind of Checkout Innovation
SKAAP operates in a space dominated by giants such as Amazon Just Walk Out, NCR, and a handful of proprietary scan-and-go tools built for large chains. But Ayo says his team is not trying to replicate the heavy, infrastructure-dependent models.
According to him, here is where SKAAP stands apart:
- Zero hardware. Zero gates. Zero heavy infrastructure.
- Lightning-fast rollout, retailers can deploy in days, not months.
- Designed for small and mid-size retailers, not only major chains.
- Far more flexible and cost-efficient than kiosk-driven systems.
- A user-obsessed, mobile-first experience focused on speed and simplicity.
“SKAAP makes brick-and-mortar retail feel as fast as online shopping but powered by the customer’s own phone. It is the fastest, lightest, most retailer-friendly way to eliminate queues and increase sales with no heavy infrastructure,” Ayo said.
Despite being early in its journey, SKAAP has already made notable progress. It has completed its MVP with mobile scanning, payment, auto-receipts, and a store dashboard. It also secured early pilot interest from convenience and grocery retailers.
Meet the Team
Every innovation is only as strong as the team behind it, and SKAAP’s is built on complementary strengths, and its team includes:
1. Samuel Odeyemi – CEO & Co-founder
A business operator focused on customer development, scaling strategy, and market fit.
He has led multiple startup initiatives from ideation to growth, winning provincial innovation competitions and building customer-centric growth models.
Before SKAAP, he worked across product strategy, sales development, operations, and revenue design.
2. Satyam – CTO & Co-founder
A technical lead with deep experience in AI, mobile engineering, and backend architecture.
He has built scalable technology systems and contributed to automation tools in retail and logistics.
The Road Ahead
Over the next six to twelve months, SKAAP plans to launch multiple pilot programmes in convenience stores and grocery outlets, aiming to reach between 1,500 and 3,000 active shoppers each month. The team also intends to formalise partnerships with key POS vendors while raising early institutional funding to accelerate growth.
Looking ahead two to three years, SKAAP aims to expand into three to five major US cities, establishing itself as the leading scan-and-go solution for small and mid-size retailers. During this period, the company says it will also develop its AI-driven loss prevention system and smart merchandising engine, enhancing both security and operational insights for participating retailers.
In the longer term, SKAAP envisions powering millions of retail transactions every month and becoming the default checkout layer for brick-and-mortar stores, not only across the United States but also throughout Africa, fundamentally reshaping the in-store shopping experience.
The Role of Government
Ayo believes governments should help businesses by removing friction and boosting productivity. This includes small-business grants; simplifying compliance, company registration, and export processes; strengthening digital infrastructure; and funding innovation sandboxes for practical, problem-solving startups.
For Ayo, the continent’s greatest barrier is not the absence of talent but the absence of systems that allow talent to flourish.
Weak payment rails, unstable electricity, slow logistics, fragmented data, and regulatory bottlenecks collectively slow execution and innovation.
Experts say SKAAP’s long-term ambition to become the checkout layer for millions across two continents is a direct attempt to solve one part of this infrastructure challenge.
Talking Points
It is impressive that SKAAP has designed a mobile-first, scan-and-go checkout system, addressing a major pain point that has long plagued retailers and shoppers alike: long queues and slow in-store transactions.
This single innovation alone positions SKAAP as a practical solution for real retail challenges, particularly for convenience stores, grocery outlets, and pharmacies that operate during peak hours and struggle with customer throughput.
At Techparley, we see how tools like this can modernise brick-and-mortar retail, bringing the speed and convenience of online shopping into physical stores, and enhancing the overall customer experience.
By integrating scanning, payment, promotions, loyalty rewards, and receipts into a single mobile platform, SKAAP allows retailers to operate with efficiency and accuracy previously limited to large chains. Staff can now focus on service rather than manual checkout, while shoppers enjoy autonomy and speed.
As SKAAP scales through pilot programmes and POS partnerships, there is significant potential for it to become the standard checkout solution for small and mid-size retailers, both in the United States and, eventually, across Africa.
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