Kenyan B2B distribution platform Marketforce has acquired Digiduka, another online platform enabling distribution to informal retailers. The move now means there are four large players in Kenya all competing in the online distribution space: Copia, Twiga, Sokowatch and Marketforce.

Marketforce was launched in 2018 and describes itself as “end-to-end solution to manage your field sales activities and grow your distribution channels in Africa.” It claims to operate in 5 countries, works with more than 50 brands and to have processed $500m in sales. In May 2020 it successfully raised $350,000 in a seed funding round. It is primarily a tool to assist field sales teams for brands.

At the end of 2020 it launched its own B2B online buying platform, RejaReja (translates from Swahili as ResellResell). RejaReja claims to deliver products within 24 hours of ordering and its app is targeted at informal retailers. It claims to have taken 75,000 orders from 12,000 informal retailers.

Digiduka, which enables informal retailers to trade online, launched in Nairobi in October 2020. Its platform allows retailers to collect payments from customers via mobile app or USSD shortcode, and to get their products for sale online. It completed a seed funding round of £100,000 and at the time said it had signed up more than 3,500 merchants to its platform, and had transacted $200,000 on its platform. Now it says has 6,800 merchants and plans to transact in excess of $5m on its platform in 2021.

The acquisition will see the teams from both companies merge, RejaReja adopting Digiduka’s payment technology and the integration of each company’s customer bases.

They face an uphill battle. For example, Copia raised $26m in a 2019 funding round and is in the pr0cess of another funding round. Twiga has raised $107.1m in funding. Sokowatch has raised $18.6m in funding. Both Jumia and Glovo, giants in comparison, are positioning themselves as ecommerce platforms for local retailers.

A big issue it faces is that its USP – an online platform to support field agents – isn’t where it is aiming. Rather, it is directly competing against other B2B wholesale platforms. Unless Marketforce can attract serious investment quickly, it will continue to be the #4 player in Kenya and faces little prospect of successfully entering other markets.