Marketforce a Kenyan e-commerce platform that provides end-to-end retail distribution for consumer brands, has announced the strategic acquisition of Digiduka, a company that aims to bring Africa’s informal retailers into the digital economy
Market force was launched in 2018 with an aim to build the most comprehensive field sales and distribution platform for Africa and emerging markets.
The acquisition of Digiduka, a company that aims to bring Africa’s informal retailers into the digital economy will see the two startups merge their offerings to gain quicker scale. The deal accelerates the integration of financial services into RejaReja and consolidates two companies that share a common goal of providing an all-inclusive digital commerce platform for informal retailers in Africa.
“Our team is excited to join forces with MarketForce and go after this US$700 billion market opportunity together. Despite the seeming runaway success of mobile money in Kenya, a huge 92 per cent of retail payments for daily expenses are still made in cash, among informal retailers and low-income consumers. The opportunity to digitise a large portion of this transactions and extend working capital to these retailers is also largely untapped due to the perceived risk that MarketForce resolves through having reliable data on re-stocking patterns at the retail level,” said Roy Njoka, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Digiduka.
Tesh Mbaabu, co-founder and CEO of MarketForce, said the two teams shared a vision and values. and that acquiring Digiduka instead of competing with them just makes sense. It’s all about two solid teams coming together to create a massive impact in African retail. This is a case where one plus one is equal to five,” he said.
“This is a powerful fintech step forward for MarketForce as we plan to empower retailers even further, by enabling them to act as a one-stop shop for even more financial services like insurance and banking services in Kenya and other markets. Enabling them to upsell such services drastically increases retailer earnings while solving the last-mile distribution challenge and driving financial inclusion for millions of Africans.”