The Harambeans Prosperity Fund had added US$100,000 to the US$2 million pre-Series A round announced last month by a Kenyan retail-tech startup MarketForce.
MarketForce, co-founded in 2018 by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti, enables consumer brands to optimize how they deliver essential goods and services to retailers and consumers by bridging the information gap in last mile distribution and maximising efficiency throughout the sales and distribution value chain.
The platform of the startup makes use of mobile devices by enabling field agents to record all customer interactions as they occur in the field, then aggregates this data and presents it through live web dashboards.
MarketForce, a Y Combinator alumni, announced last month that it had raised a US$2 million pre-Series A round to launch in Nigeria and scale its RejaReja platform, which is aimed at manufacturers, retailers, and sales agents operating in East Africa’s informal marketplaces.
It has now raised another $100,000 in funding, bringing its total secured capital to $2.6 million. The funds are provided by the Harambeans Prosperity Fund, a donor-advised investment vehicle established by the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance’s network of prominent families and corporations.
The fund is a rules-based co-investment vehicle that leverages investment networks to increase capital flow to Harambean-led ventures. It was created specifically to build coalitions of investors and entrepreneurs bringing scalable and affordable market-creating innovations to Africa. Mbaabu is a Harambean.
“We are delighted by this recent investment from the Harambeans Prosperity Fund. It was an honour for me to be inducted into the Alliance’s 2020 cohort, and to become part of this dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem that is driving transformation on the African continent. We are passionate about delivering digital solutions like RejaReja to solve challenges and empower African businesses to prosper, create livelihoods and more effectively provide goods and services that enhance the lives of their consumers,” he said.