Sokowatch, a Kenya B2B eCommerce startup providing informal retail shops across Africa has expanded to Rwanda and Uganda after securing US$ 2.5 million of seed round in February.
Sokowatch enables retailers to order fast-moving consumer goods for the immediate shipment via SMS or mobile app. It has already supplied over 500,000 orders to more than 10,000 retail outlets across Kenya and Tanzania.
The startup raised a US$ 2 million seed round led by 4DX Ventures in July last year and after meeting set targets by investors, it received another US$ 2.5 million seed funding in February.
The February investment round included follow-up investments from all existing investors, along with a couple of new investors including Breyer Labs, Breyer Capital’s investment arm, Babatunde Soyoye, Helios Investments ‘ managing partner.
Sokowatch Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder commented: “Over 90 per cent of all retail transactions are made with informal retailers, at an average transaction size of less than US$0.50. Instead of creating an online platform to sell to a small audience of wealthy digital shoppers, we focus on empowering informal retailers, reaching millions of average consumers in the process.
“Interestingly we find that our customers in markets outside of Nairobi are actually adopting our services faster and order more on average. This supports our belief that our model can be successful in transforming informal businesses all across the continent, even outside tech-focused cities.”
