Kenyan startup GoBEBA says it is reimagining Africa’s utilities supply chain to help provide the infrastructure that can cope with the continent-wide explosion in urban growth.
Formed in 2019 by Peter Ndiang’ui, a former OLX general manager, and Lesley Mbogo, a former head of product at Amazon, GoBEBA is an online distributor of bulky refillable essentials.
The team has developed a robust technology stack to run a distributed logistics network of micro-fulfillment hubs, which it plans to continue automating through AI and robotics.
“To expedite scaling, a number of technology initiatives have been lined up. For example, a workplace essentials procurement portal with approval workflows and a petty cash wallet will enable GoBEBA to penetrate the large corporate and SME market while digitising office essentials procurement processes,” Ndiang’ui told Disrupt Africa.
He said Africa was experiencing an “explosion in urban growth”.
“However, the infrastructure to distribute basic essentials such as drinking water and cooking gas is inadequate and inefficient. We provide a digital distribution platform for bulky essentials to solve these problems for manufacturers, brand owners, and consumers,” said Ndiang’ui.
The startup is clearly servicing a growing need. With minimal capital invested last year, its revenue grew five-fold, and it nearly broke even. Monthly active customers doubled, with 70 per cent of them being repeats. Why such an impact in such a short period of time? Ndiang’ui said there is a significant gap in the distribution of bulk essentials in African cities.
“While developed cities have converted the distribution of these bulky essentials like running water and cooking gas into well piped, reliable utilities, most cities in Africa have them distributed in bulky portable devices that require two way deliveries with return trips,” he said.
GoBEBA digitises this process, so far only in Nairobi, but Ndiang’ui said expansion is on the horizon.
“Our plans are to expand in a number of cities in the continent. On our radar are 30 fastest growing cities in the continent, including places like Kinshasa and Lusaka,” he said.
The startup is unusual in that it is almost entirely self-funded, though in the early days it did secure some equity funding from angels and an accelerator. It monetises through product margins and commissions from its “fulfilment as a service” offering.
“We have pivoted a couple of times due to some challenges. We started with a pure asset light business model, but it proved to be a significant challenge due to the absence of logistics infrastructure upon which to build the platform on,” said Ndiang’ui. “Getting micro-fulfilment spaces located close to our customers has been very challenging since this is not a real estate asset class that exists in the market today.”
So far, so good, however, for GoBEBA, and now to see what the future holds.
