Rwazi, a market intelligence platform for emerging markets, has secured $4M in seed funding to scale their operations. The funding round was led by Bonfire Ventures with participation from Newfund, Alumni Ventures, Techstars.
Founded in 2021 by Raoseph Rutakangwa and Eric Sewankambo, Rwazi collects data regarding product usage, frequency of consumption, household budgets, and income. The data is focused on the requirements of its SaaS product subscribers.
Commenting, Raoseph Rutakangwa Rwazi co-founder said: “We launched Rwazi because we had to try to obtain timely market insights in our previous jobs, which helped us understand how frustrating the process could get and how valuable that information could be.”
He noted that most available data, often collected by state agencies, is either outdated or focuses on general trends, and lacks the granularity that is needed to make accurate decisions.
Rwazi helps multinationals access data regarding who is buying what, for how much, from where, when and why, to help them drive revenue and expand. Because brands are getting data from the horse’s mouth and can see how consumers are making purchasing decisions, they can do hyper-local messaging, pricing and packaging,” said Rutakangwa.
Contrary to larger research firms that make inferences based on sample data, the startup simply wants unit-level data such as product sizes purchased, frequency of purchases, and consumer geographic location.
Rwazi, was part of the Techstars Los Angeles accelerator program last year. The startup currently has a network of 50,000 consumers including 18 multinational corporations that track more than 200 different products across sectors including fast-moving consumer goods, healthcare, telecommunications, and financial services.
