Africa is seen as the next trade frontier after the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) comes into force. This created the largest single unrestricted trade zone in the world. However, while trade liberalization aims to facilitate intra-regional trade, its takeoff depends on major infrastructure investments to ensure supply chain efficiency. More progress has to do with how quickly market information circulates to key stakeholders such as traders, regulators and financiers.
Kenyan start-up Xetova deploys technology that enables traders to access information about market opportunities in order to realize new opportunities. We are currently building a network of large, medium and small companies that will be leveraged to derive insight and perspective on market opportunities and risks.
“For example, we are building trust networks that allow companies in Kenya to know who to work with in countries like Nigeria, South Africa. We can only build it,” said Xetova founder and CEO Bramuel Mwalo, adding that his company is committed to the largest trade intelligence and supply chain support network.
To ensure that deal trends, reports and highlights are authentic, Xetova was founded in 2019 to help businesses interpret data on supply chains, spending, revenue and general management performance. We are putting our network on the data from the insight services we use. actionable insight.
This insight service is the first in Xetova’s suite to allow clients to sign up and then subscribe to other services including trade finance and links to a wide range of trade networks.
Mwalo’s interest in African trade was prompted by research in which he participated. Entrepreneurs were shown to be more likely to succeed if they got access to large procurement deals and unfragmented distribution channels.
“This discovery got me interested in B2B transactions, large-scale supply chains, and how African entrepreneurs can access large-scale sourcing opportunities. We have developed this theory that we can access, manage risk, and drive an interconnected way,” said Mwalo.
“Then my doctoral dissertation focused on how to make B2B data accessible in the sense that everyone in Africa who wants to do business should really have access to data on opportunities, risks and networks. This information needs to be readily available in the market, and where it is available, the way you trade will change significantly because, after all, your perception of risk is different.
While in school, Mwalo took time off to join Kountable, a financier that provides loans to small businesses that have been barred from formal institutions due to lack of collateral.
In his two years as Kountable executive, he says they have funded $32 million worth of deals and helped 200 entrepreneurs in several countries, including Kenya and Rwanda. However, even with the $150 million line of credit, it proved difficult to expand lending due to the lack of verifiable data on the operations of many companies.
“In the beginning, the business was going really well and the uptake was great. have lost money.Their needs are growing rapidly and are beyond our due diligence capabilities,” said Mwalo.
“At that point, we realized that the biggest problem in intra-African trade was not capital, but information asymmetries in terms of where the value, security and profits lay,” he said.
This experience led him to launch Xetova for trade intelligence, where companies can understand and unlock the value of the data they own and use it to inform solutions to challenges and open up new partnerships. We have come to demonstrate how it can be used at scale. bigger market. In addition to allowing businesses to access loans based on their own data and insights, it will be used by lenders within Xetova’s network to offer bespoke loans.
Xetova counts among its clients government agencies that not only serve businesses but also work together to improve the efficiency of healthcare. Such entities are provided with insights into their consumption, distribution, procurement spend, suppliers, and payments performance.
The company claims to have posted $2.45 million in revenue through December last year and facilitated $7 million in trade finance.
Xetova is looking to grow its customer base from 60 large enterprises today to 300 in the next 18 months.
The company has signed 10 major distributors in Africa, increasing its access to more than 10 countries from its current seven, with the goal of facilitating $20 million in trade finance.
Xetova raised $4 million last year in an equity/debt seed round led by South Africa’s TRT Investments and also launched a fellowship program for potential investors.
