Kenya’s MarketForce To Grow Its Super App In Five Additional Markets Across Africa
Dec. 6, 2021, 12:30 p.m.
About 80% of household retail is delivered through informal retailers in sub-Saharan Africa. Still, these shops are faced with several challenges like stockouts, earnings instability and financing that make it hard for their businesses to grow.
Kenyan B2B retail startup MarketForce has penetrated five additional markets; Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda to grow its super app RejaReja and help merchant businesses grow.
The startup’s plan for RejaReja is to have a presence in every market across sub-Saharan Africa soon by building an all-inclusive platform for the informal merchants that sell a huge chunk of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) in Africa.
MarketForce, which is also a financial services distribution, partnered with Cellulant, a pan-African payments company, to make the expansion possible.
Founded in 2018, MarketForce bridges the gap in retail distribution by delivering an end-to-end platform that enables consumer brands to deliver essential goods and services to retailers and consumers.
The startup provides a B2B retail marketplace that empowers informal merchants in Africa to source, order and pays for inventory digitally and conveniently, access financing, collect digital payments and make extra money by reselling digital financial services such as airtime, electricity tokens and bill payments.
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According to the founders, they aim to grow their RejaReja merchants tenfold to 1 million by the end of next year. RejaReja has experienced rapid growth since its launch in December 2020, with over 87,000 orders made through the platform to date at an average basket value of $151. It is expected to record $60 million in annualised transaction volume by the end of this month.
Cellulant has partnerships with 46 mobile-money operators in Africa, 120 banks and serves 35 African countries with a physical presence in 18, according to the payments firm. RejaReja is set to tap Cellulant’s coverage to grow across the continent.
Per these statistics, MarketForce wants to collaborate with Cellulant to open the new markets, and the reason is they already have a presence in these markets and have partnerships with both banks and billers. This will ensure that they focus on acquiring new merchants.
“We have been piloting this partnership for six months and are happy to announce the plan to extend the fruitful relationship we have built with MarketForce in Kenya…This collaboration will make our digital financial services available to millions of Africans to significantly boost financial inclusion and incomes for merchants across Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Cellulant chief business officer David Waithaka.
tag: Africa, partnerships, Startup,
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Verny loves to write poetry, fiction and quotes. Her love for writing landed her in journalism. She loves gadgets and travelling to explore new places.