Eight months after its last round of funding, MarketForce has secured another round to support its expansion across the continent.  This new operation brings to $42.5 million the total amount raised by the company since its launch four years ago.  

MarketForce, the Kenyan retail platform that connects FMCG (Fast-moving consumer goods) suppliers with informal sector merchants, announced last February 22 it has raised $40 million in equity and debt Series A funding. The deal represents "the largest Series A round of its kind in East and Central Africa," the company said.

“We are targeting to serve over 1 million active merchants on our platform in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2025 […][...]Today marks the beginning of a new chapter at Marketforce. We just closed a Ksh4.5 billion ($40 million) Series A funding round led by V8 Capital Ventures and are one step closer to achieving our goal of being the largest B2B commerce & fintech marketplace in Africa,” said CEO Tesh Mbaabu.

As a reminder, Marketforce raised $2 million in pre-series A funding last June to expand its operations in East Africa. In four years, it has raised $42.5 million overall. The company co-founded by Tesh Mbaabu and Mesongo Sibuti plans to accelerate growth in the five markets it currently operates in (in East and West Africa), and roll out its "Buy Now and Pay Later" service.  Marketforce also wants to offer more digital banking and financial services to its clients.

MarketForce claims to have increased its customer base 20-fold from 5,000 informal merchants in 2021 to 100,000 in 2022. The company also claims to be processing 6,000 transactions daily with growing revenues.

According to data reported by the platform, about 90% of household retail transactions in sub-Saharan Africa are cash-based, via a network of about 100 million MSMEs, of which Nigeria accounts for 42 million. Retail payments on the continent are expected to reach $2.1 trillion, by 2025.

Chamberline Moko