If there will be a scaled up intra and inter-African trade with the commencement of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA), the need for a seamless connection between the buyers and suppliers, but beyond this, businesses need access to working capital cannot be underestimated. To this end, Plendify a Ghanaian-based fintech startup is changing this narrative by solving access to working capital for businesses on the African continent and creating strong local supply chains in Africa.
The startup which is a Plendify B2B Marketplace allows users to find local suppliers, wholesalers, and manufacturers in Ghana and they want to expand beyond the shores of Ghana to other African countries. Established in 2018 in Toronto, Canada by the trio of Beau Sackey, CEO, (Ghana) Michael Manirakza, COO, (Rwanda) and Roger Vandomme (France) who is based in Ivory Coast Plendify has co-founders with complementary skill sets across finance, data Science and technology wanted to build a scalable and impactful business in Africa to eventually support the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
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According to Beau, “initially, our business was focused on fintech lending. As a result, we partnered with a large Ghanaian bank to roll out our proprietary credit adjudication platform – PlendScoreTM”. Beau explained that Plendify’s thesis was and has always been about supporting businesses.
“So, our partnership with the bank was anchored on providing working capital loans to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) efficiently, quickly, and with minimal risk.”
Down the line, the Co-founders realized that the bank’s partnership had all the characteristics of a long enterprise sale cycle, and for a startup, this was a big risk. This realization led the trio to make a decision about pivoting the business model to center around Plendify’s execution of a marketplace platform for SMBs. Thus Plendify in addition to its fintech product began building an e-commerce B2B Marketplace platform in late 2019.
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According to Beau, the B2B market in Ghana is primarily offline as there are more than 3 million SMBs in that mode, and of these offline businesses, well over half a million are suppliers. Suppliers in this sense mean wholesalers, distributors, local manufacturers and importers.
“Based on extensive research (both primary and secondary research) we came to realize that over 90% of all businesses in Ghana, irrespective of size, spend countless hours searching (offline) for affordable, reliable and trusted suppliers. The net effect of this is wasted time, poor quality and over-spending.”
Plendify’s B2B Marketplace is changing the narrative by squarely addressing the issues previously highlighted.
“We do this in a variety of ways. Firstly, we get close to our supplier base and we onboard them as suppliers on our platform.
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Part of our onboarding process requires minimal checks and validations that are done to ensure that we are only bringing onto our marketplace – businesses/suppliers that are verified. We are also providing our suppliers with tools like online payments and national delivery, in essence providing our supplier base with broader access to markets and increased visibility.”
Beau explained that what Plendify has seen in the competitive landscape is that players in the space are focused on the consumer buyer and not on the business buyer. Plendify has also chosen to be dominant in categories that traditional e-commerce players are not dominant in, for example, Food & Beverage, Beauty & Cosmetics, Agriculture & Farming to name a few. Plendify B2B Marketplace is available on all platforms including Android, Apple, and the Web.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry