Betastore gets $2.5M to solve stock-outs, financing challenges for informal retailers in West and Central Africa
- ByStartupStory | May 30, 2022
Betastore is a D2B retail marketplace specifically for informal retailers that is planning to resolve in Nigeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast.
According to reports,80% of household retail in Sub-Saharan Africa is delivered through informal retailers and thus face several difficulties like stock-out which eventually leads to instability in earnings and this does not appeal to the financers.
After closing $2.5 million in pre-series A funding,The startup aims to establish its reach to other markets like Ghana,Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo. The funding was from Loyal VC,500 Global, VestedWorld. It has also shown interest in entering 100 cities and to reinforce the technology and leadership team so that the products produced can be renewed and improved.
“Our technology enables retailers to order on demand, access a variety of products and solves logistics headaches for them too. With Betastore, they don’t have to close their shops to go get goods from distributors stores or the market, and do not have to lose close to half of the margins in in the logistics,” said Dakayi-Kamga, who previously worked for Jumia, where he led the e-commerce platform’s logistics, warehousing and marketplace fulfillment department.
Betastore is set to launch financing in July which follows a pilot program that involves 200 retailers carried out last year. It is currently integrating it’s technology into financing networks.Retailers can also use the Betastore wallet to repay loans, deposit money and to save and receive money which helps them to distinguish their own and the business money.
The startup has claimed to grow 10 to 12 times and anticipates more growth especially after entering more countries rolling out its buy now and play later(BNPL) which was valued $380 billion in 2021, contributing 20-50% of the region’s GDP on average.
“We believe Betastore’s talented team is creating market efficiencies that have the potential to boost the growth of Africa’s retailers. With Betastore, merchants can get greater transparency into wholesaler inventories and price points.”
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