E-commerce Business-to-business (B2B) and end-to-end distribution have become the most common business formats in Africa.

B2B refers to business-to-business transactions, such as those between a manufacturer and a wholesaler or a wholesaler and a retailer. Africa has a lot of business potential, and investors are taking notice.

MarketForce, a retail business-to-business (B2B) and end-to-end distribution platform created in Kenya, recently secured $40 million in Series A funding for merchant inventory finance and growth across Africa as a result of the expanding potential of these businesses on the continent.

The startup, which expanded beyond Kenya and Nigeria last year to include Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda, wants to add buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) alternatives to assist retailers to get credit for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs). It also intends to expand its presence in East and West Africa.

READ ALSO - Flutterwave 3.0 - New Look with Endless Possibilities

This current round (equal amounts of debt and equity) takes MarketForce’s total funding to $42.5 million. It also arrives after the business received $2 million in a pre-Series A investment seven months ago.

V8 Capital Partners, a London and Lagos-based African-focused investment firm led the current round, which also included Ten13 VC, SOSV Select Fund, Vu Ventures, Vastly Valuable Ventures, and Uncovered Fund.

Reflect Ventures, Greenhouse Capital, Century Oak Capital, and Remapped Ventures were among the current investors who participated in the round. Ken Njoroge, the co-founder of Cellulant and chairman of the MarketForce board of directors, also participated in the round.

Informal traders can use its merchant super app RejaReja to get items (hundreds of SKUs) straight from producers and suppliers, place and pay for goods online, receive utility bill payments, and apply for business financing.

READ ALSO - Credrails Secures Undisclosed Seed Funding

MarketForce, a SaaS product for the formal markets developed by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti in 2018, launched the RejaReja retail marketplace in 2020.

Over the next few months, MarketForce wants to add to its staff to 800 people and increase the number of merchants using the RejaReja app by 2.5 times to 250,000, up from 5,000 a year ago. The rise of RejaReja and the increase of merchants means fresh markets for FMCG products.

RejaReja is an asset-light strategy, which means it doesn’t own capital assets like warehouses or delivery trucks; instead, it relies on its partners, who include manufacturers and distributors, to provide them.

Its strategy enables it to expand quickly. Pezesha, a digital financial marketplace platform, has partnered with the business to provide loans to its merchants.

(Source)