Viktoria Business Angels Network is pleased to announce participation in a USD 350,000 seed investment round into Kenyan founded technology holding company Mesozi Group. The investment will go directly into the flagship subsidiary and product, MarketForce 360, to maximize on their recent momentum by enhancing the product to unlock new revenue streams and building the team’s capacity across East Africa.
Tesh Mbaabu, Co-Founder and CEO of MarketForce 360, speaking about the investment said, “2020 has been an incredibly important year for us. After two bootstrapped years of R&D, building the product, and testing across various industries, we are ready to take in external capital. Initial customers love our product, so we are ready to aggressively grow our customer base as we make an impact in the expansive African retail and distribution economy. We are focused on supporting our clients to sell more during this difficult time and plan to raise additional capital within the year to support our growth efforts.”
Founded in 2018, MarketForce 360 enables consumer brands to optimize how they deliver essential goods and services to retailers and consumers by bridging the information gap in last-mile distribution while maximizing efficiency across the sales and distribution value chain. They leverage the power and availability of mobile devices by enabling field agents to record all customer interactions as they happen in the field; for digitized orders, deliveries, and payments to enhance productivity and improve customer service.
MarketForce 360 then aggregates the data collected in the field and presents it through live web dashboards, where manufacturers, distributors, and financial service providers can easily and effectively monitor and analyze their distribution channels. These functions enable them to estimate demand and tailor their sales, distribution, and marketing efforts based on real-time market trends and consumer purchasing habits. This enables them to harness the potential of the African market like never before.
Jason Musyoka, VBAN Manager, said, “We believe that the highly fragmented African retail and distribution value chain is primed for disruption. The analytics from such platforms will be instrumental in distribution optimization hence bringing goods to as close as possible to the highly-expectant, globally-aware African consumer market. The team at Mesozi has proven to be capable of delivering the product and eager to exploit the opportunities the sector presents.”
What’s particularly compelling about MarketForce 360 is that they are building a suite of solutions that address an African economy where over 90% of the goods and services consumed are sold through an informal network of over 15 million retail outlets and millions of field sales agents.
“MarketForce 360 is the first of its kind, end to end sales and distribution digitalization platform offering ‘Technology as a Service’ that is in use across the entire value chain for various industries, from the manufacturers to distributors, wholesalers, retailers and field sales agents. This not only unifies the fragmented retail economy but also allows for easier integration of third-party solutions for value-added services like retail audit, point of sale, logistics, and retailer financing.”, added Mesongo, Co-founder & CTO of MarketForce 360.
About VBAN
VBAN is a local angel network of individual and investment groups that have an investment interest in early-stage ventures within the East African region. VBAN’s objectives are threefold and are summarized below;
● Syndicate both individual and investment groups capital to early-stage companies within the EA region
● Capacity build angel investors to become better acquainted with the investment landscape
● Enable like-minded individuals to network and establish similar investment interest and focus
About Mesozi Group and MarketForce Technologies, Inc
Mesozi Group is a collection of companies offering tech-enabled solutions across various industries, with a strong focus on Africa. MarketForce Technologies, Inc is building the most comprehensive field sales and distribution platform for emerging markets, with the aim of bridging the gap in last-mile distribution by enabling consumer brands to optimize how they deliver essential goods and services to retailers and consumers.
