African B2B e-commerce businesses raised a combined $423 million between 2021 and 2022 because their value proposition worked: they helped informal retailers stock up inventory faster by connecting them to wholesalers.

Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) needed to be sold off quickly due to their short shelf life and to accommodate the high demand for these products. But the delivery delay from distributors made this a lingering problem. Retailers were losing money and business was shrinking.

B2B e-commerce companies formed partnerships with manufacturers, often deploying their logistics fleet and inadvertently displacing distributors. Soon, this situation kept everyone in a bind: retailers wanted better rates, and the companies had to compete with distributors.

These businesses were seeing some red as low margins and unit-level losses became challenges for the business. Yet OmniRetail, a B2B e-commerce company founded by Deepanker Rustagi in 2019 claims it has cracked the code to profitability.

OmniRetail does not attempt to replace the middlemen. It offers three products: Omnibiz for retailers, Mplify for distributors, and an embedded finance app, Omnipay for facilitating payments. 

Retailers place orders on Omnibiz, and the company, using their bulk orders as a bargaining chip, gets favourable discount offers that they pass to the retailers. As soon as these orders tick off, distributors pick it up on Mplify and deliver last-mile to retailers. 

“The value chain margin in commerce has various layers, including distributors, wholesalers, and retailers. If you can play a role in these different layers of efficiency, you can get a large amount,” said Rustagi.

For a company that claims to have achieved net profitability, OmniRetail’s asset-light approach allows it to achieve even greater economies of scale.

Go deeper in our OmniRetail coverage here.

Flutterwave has appointed Mitesh Popat as its new chief financial officer (CFO), replacing former CFO Oneal Bhambani who left the company in November 2023.

Before joining Flutterwave, Popat spent 18 years at Citi where he served as CFO for the Middle East and Africa (MEA). Popat revels in executing financial business growth strategies. His work navigating financial compliance at Citi in the MEA region is an addition Flutterwave will be keen on having on their team, given their expansion goals. 

In 2024, the fintech company expanded its payments infrastructure to Southern and Eastern African markets, with its latest licence acquisition in Uganda. Equally, the company is actively cutting off cash-burning products and aggressively pursuing new growth markets.

It has shut down its struggling money transfer product, Barter, opting instead to stick with its remittance product, Send. It also shifted its focus to enterprise payments and laid off 3% of its staff who were working on products the company deemed surplus to requirements.

Flutterwave is looking to connect more African markets to its ecosystem. And Popat’s new job will see him ask questions daily about how the company will capture more money while losing less—to boost retail investors’ confidence—as it continues to front-pedal its plan to go public.

This week, Nigeria’s Kredete, a financial software platform, secured $2.25 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Blockchain Founders Fund, with participation from Techstars, Tezos Foundation, Polymorphic Capital, Launch Africa, Neer Venture Partners, and DNA Fund. (September 2)

Here are other deals for the week:

• Chpter, a Kenyan e-commerce startup, raised $1.2 million in a pre-seed round. Pani led the funding round with participation from Plesion Capital, Techstars, Norrsken, Renew Capital, Viktoria Ventures, and angel investors. (September 2)
• Tunisian IoT-based smart energy management solution startup Wattnow announced the closing of an undisclosed multi-million dollar funding round. The round was led by Lateral Frontiers and 216 Capital, with participation from Outlierz Ventures, Satgana, Octerra Capital, and other strategic angel investors. (September 4)

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more funding announcements. Before you go, our State of Tech in Africa H1 2024 Report is out. Click this link to download it.