Tech Crunch | by Tage Kene-Okafor
Informal retail is king in Africa, with hundreds of billions of dollars of consumer goods sold through its channels yearly. Yet its industry remains highly fragmented as shop owners and kiosks still have issues around access to capital and getting goods regularly and on time from suppliers and distributors.
B2B retail and e-commerce platforms have primarily tried to fix these inefficient supply chains over the last couple of years and have received substantial investor backing since the pandemic.
It has been a hot sector for investors, and today’s news shows they aren’t slowing down in backing these startups just yet as Sokowatch, one of the major players in the space, announced that it has raised $125 million in Series B funding. The investment — which values the company at $625 million, as TechCrunch has learned — coincides with its rebrand to Wasoko…
