WASOKO

Daniel Yu, an American entrepreneur who had lived in Africa, saw what every foreign observer noticed but few built for: Africa had millions of small retailers (dukas in East Africa, kiosks in West Africa, spaza shops in South Africa) that were completely disconnected from formal supply chains. A small shop in Nairobi was buying Unilever products from a distributor who bought from a sub-distributor who bought from another distributor — three or four margin layers between factory and shelf.

Wasoko (originally called Sokowatch) went direct: manufacturers list products, retailers order on a mobile app, Wasoko delivers same-day. It was effectively the Alibaba B2B model applied to informal African retail.

Wasoko operates a B2B marketplace connecting FMCG manufacturers to informal retailers (dukas — small neighborhood shops) in Africa. It earns revenue from the margin on goods sold (it buys from manufacturers at wholesale and sells to retailers at a markup) and from financial services (embedded credit for retailers who need to buy inventory on account).

The last-mile logistics is owned by Wasoko — it operates its own fleet of delivery vehicles.

Wasoko app (ordering for small retailers), buy-now-pay-later credit for stock purchases, same-day delivery network. Since the merger, the group has pushed into fintech for shopkeepers and bought Egyptian B2B marketplace Fatura in 2025.

Sokowatch started in Kenya and expanded into Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. In March 2022 it raised a $125 million Series B at a $625 million valuation, renamed itself Wasoko, and pushed into West Africa, including Senegal and Ivory Coast.

That expansion did not last. As funding dried up it cut staff and pulled out of several markets, including Uganda, Zambia and Senegal.

In August 2024 it completed a merger with Egypt's MaxAB, creating MaxAB-Wasoko, which operates in Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda and is now leaning hard into lending and payments for shopkeepers.

The informal retail market in Africa is highly fragmented, hundreds of thousands of small shops each ordering small amounts, spread across cities without formal addresses. Serving it needs warehouses, delivery vehicles and route density before the economics work, and thin grocery margins leave little room for error.

When venture funding for Africa collapsed in 2023, Wasoko had to lay off staff and exit markets, then merge with MaxAB. In 2025 Daniel Yu stepped down as CEO, MaxAB co-founder Belal El-Megharbel became sole CEO of the combined company, and VNV Global cut the value of its stake.

Rivals like TradeDepot and Omnibiz face the same squeeze.

Tiger Global, Avenir Growth, Quona Capital, 4DX Ventures, VNV Global, Vertex Ventures, Breyer Capital, Village Global, JAM Fund