RejaReja is a retailer that makes it possible for informal merchants to order and pay for inventory digitally, accept payments for utility bills, and access, and MarketForce has expanded into five additional markets across Africa.
After successful pilot programs, RejaReja will be entering Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, and other countries after it was launched in Nigeria.
MarketForce has a partnership with Cellulant, a pan-African payments company that makes it possible for local and international merchants to accept locally relevant and alternative payment methods from their customers.
Cellulant already has partnerships with both banks and billers, and we are working with them to open new markets. Tesh Mbaabu told Techrunch that this will ensure that they focus on acquiring new merchants.
Cellulant has partnerships with 46 mobile-money operators in Africa, 120 banks and serves 35 African countries with a physical presence. RejaReja is going to use Cellulant's coverage to grow across the continent.
We have been piloting this partnership for six months and are happy to announce the plan to extend the fruitful relationship we have built with MarketForce in Kenya.
MarketForce co-founder and CEO Tesh Mbaabu is also the Cellulant chief business officer. MarketForce has image credits.
Mbaabu said that they want to grow their RejaReja merchants tenfold by the end of next year. Since its launch in December of 2020, RejaReja has experienced a rapid growth with over 87,000 orders made through the platform to date at an average basket value of $151. It is expected to have $60 million in transaction volume by the end of the month.
In November we hit 100,000 merchants in Africa. We are growing 40% a month. Mbaabu said that this shows how strong the service is.
The growth is due to the merchants seeing the value and trusting our platform. A lot of them are using technology for the first time. The service has many active users. MarketForce raised $2 million in seed funding.
RejaReja is going to build an all inclusive platform for the informal merchants in order to have a presence in every market in sub-Saharan Africa. Informal retailers in sub-Saharan Africa face a number of challenges that make it hard for them to grow their businesses.
MarketForce, through RejaReja, is providing solutions to these challenges by ensuring next-day delivery of goods, and using their data to develop the credit profiles needed to secure loans. The startup has a partnership with Pezesha, a digital financial marketplace platform.
RejaReja is the largest retail distribution network in Africa.
The goal is to empower merchants to grow their incomes and profits in a digital age, to access inventory, to act as special agents for various financial services, and to make extra income as a result. We are able to extend working capital loans.
