Over 300 million small and medium-size farmers across Africa and other emerging markets rely on agriculture to survive. However, due to their size, they have no direct access to traditional retail channels and as a result are forced to live on less than 20USD per month. On the other side, thousands of customers are looking to buy these fresher and naturally grown products but are faced with so many inefficiencies on the process, ranging from bad traffic to long lines in stores or the big mess on the street markets that turn buying fresh and vegetables a highly inconvenient experience.
Noting these concerns Titos Munhequete founded Izyshop, a multi-awarded online supermarket, connecting local producers and service providers to consumer markets through a simple, convenient and trustworthy platform with home delivery, changing the way people shop for groceries and improving the lives of small and medium farmers and producers.
Today with Izyshop, not only are customers ordering online locally grown fresh and vegetables and receiving them in their homes in the same day, but the platform has helped farmers move to over 100USD of monthly income.
The site was launched in 2015, and had seen massive growth in short span of time. While other e-commerce platforms such as Jumia required funding to be able to operate on a large scale, Izyshop has been operating with founder funding. It gained 1,000 plus customers in one year, holds about 60 per cent of its own inventory and runs its own delivery service. This allowed the startup to turn up a profit in its first year.
More recently Izyshop had sought aid from African VC and advisory firm HAVAIC to assit the startup raise funds of up to $3000.
In addition to gaining high demand in Mozambique, the startup has left its mark in various competitions such as the Seedstars Maputo competition in July 2016 where it took second place. It was also selected as one of 17 African startups to participate at the Global Impact Accelerator (GIA) held at the Slush event in Helsinki, Finland in December last year.
