A $3.2 million debt-equity investment round has been obtained by Senegalese B2B e-commerce startup Maad in order to support the company’s expansion within the country and investigate new prospects in the Francophone region of West Africa.
Seedstars International Ventures, Oui Capital, Launch Africa, Reflect Ventures, Voltron Capital, and Alumni Ventures were among the investors in the seed round headed by Ventures Platform. From local banks and the French DFI Proparco, it raised $900,000 loan finance.
With Maad’s end-to-end distribution infrastructure, mom-and-pop shops and other informal retailers can purchase fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) directly from partner suppliers, resolving major challenges such as stockouts and the high cost of inventory brought on by numerous levels of dealers.
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Maad was founded in 2020 by CEO Sidy Niang and COO Jessica Long. Originally, the company offered data collection services but then changed its focus to developing software that assisted businesses in managing internal distribution.
The B2B e-commerce company was introduced in September 2021, motivated by the way FMCG suppliers used the software to address distribution issues.
“Watching our clients use our software for their own distribution was what inspired us. The software was providing a lot of value, and we could imagine much more value if we put all the products that small shops buy on the same platform,” Niang told TechCrunch.
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