@AFRICAN KID 🚸

Walk through any major African city and one thing stands out:

The corner kiosk

The mom-and-pop shop selling household staples

The street vendor with a cooler full of drinks

The small retailer who knows every customer by name.

These aren’t remnants of an old economic system – they are central to how commerce actually functions across the continent.

A growing number of African startups achieving meaningful scale have embraced this reality:

OmniRetail processed ₦1.3 trillion (about $810 million) in transactions in 2024.

Moniepoint hit unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation.

The merged Wasoko-MaxAB group now serves 450,000 merchants in eight countries.

All of them sell to businesses, which then sell to consumers.

More recently, Yellow Card shut down its consumer mobile app in January 2026 to double down on B2B stablecoin infrastructure. The company said the shift was driven by “strong and growing demand from businesses” and a need to “scale faster” with healthier unit economics.

B2B models seem to work better in Africa – and the reasons are clear.

No – retail crypto was simply a great narrative and it cannot hold anymore. https://t.co/yPFBCxbqQ6

— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) November 15, 2025

Following the Money

Africa’s informal sector represents more than 85% of total employment, according to 2024 International Labour Organisation data – higher than any other region globally. An estimated 82% of workers operate informally, compared to 56% in Latin America and 73% across developing Asia.

But most of these informal workers are not individuals operating alone. They are businesses:

The kiosk owner restocking weekly

The street vendor replenishing inventory

The neighbourhood retailer serving dozens of customers every day.

For African B2C companies, selling directly to consumers presents persistent challenges. Marketing costs escalate quickly in fragmented markets with different languages, currencies, and regulatory environments. Logistics can be unreliable. Payment systems vary widely by country. And even when consumers buy, transaction sizes remain small because purchasing power still lags behind demand.

Copia Global is a case in point. The company raised over $123 million to deliver e-commerce to underserved communities, yet entered administration in May 2024 after failing to secure further funding on favourable terms. At its peak, Copia was growing rapidly and had tens of thousands of agents. But high operating costs and weak unit economics led to the layoff of more than 1,000 staff before liquidation began.

Jumia – Africa’s most well-known e-commerce company – also highlights the limits of pure B2C models. Even Jumia had to expand beyond consumers by launching “Jumia Delivery,” a logistics-as-a-service offering for businesses.

Twiga Foods pivoted to an asset-light model by acquiring FMCG distributors to better serve merchants.

Glovo, meanwhile, partnered with Salad Africa to offer SME financing, adding new revenue through embedded B2B financial services.

Its strategy – typical of venture-backed startups – focused on growth before profitability, betting that rapid market capture would eventually justify the burn.

— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) July 24, 2025

B2B works differently.

A single business client often represents hundreds of end users.

Transaction values rise from small consumer purchases to orders worth thousands of dollars. Retention improves because switching suppliers is costly and disruptive for businesses.

Infrastructure providers benefit even more. Business payments are a massive opportunity because many SMEs still run operations manually. Companies that build digital rails can generate recurring revenue while merchants handle customer acquisition themselves. Moniepoint’s rise to unicorn status came through offering payment terminals, digital banking, and credit to small businesses.

FINTECH AFRICA | ‘Stablecoin Adoption Has the Potential to 10x the Volumes We’re Currently Doing,’ Says CEO, @theflutterwave

The next phase of fintech in Africa will be to enable businesses and consumers to transact in stablecoins seamlessly.https://t.co/vrj1PCZC8U @0xPolygon pic.twitter.com/WjDOJ8Xa8A

— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) October 31, 2025

The B2B Advantage

B2B models in Africa offer a special kind of leverage: when you digitise a retailer, you influence every customer who walks into their shop.

This approach avoids major B2C challenges.

Consumer lifetime value can vary significantly across cities, neighbourhoods, and income brackets. But a retailer serving 50 customers a day offers a far more stable value proposition. Revenue is more predictable, and churn drops because switching costs are real for business owners.

Investor behaviour reflects this. Two of the largest funding rounds last year went to B2B companies: Moniepoint raised $110 million, while TymeBank secured $250 million. M&A activity across the ecosystem is also rising, largely driven by B2B-focused consolidation.

None of this means consumer tech can’t succeed in Africa. Piggyvest and M-KOPA show that it can. But even the strongest consumer-facing companies depend heavily on underlying infrastructure.

In fact, sequencing may matter more than we admit. Infrastructure often needs to come first:

payment rails before consumer commerce

identity systems before consumer credit, and

reliable logistics before on-demand delivery.

Africa’s $1.5 Trillion Payments Opportunity is in B2B – Not Just Mobile Money, Says MasterCard – https://t.co/0HGSKter5j

— AppsAfrica (@AppsAfrica) June 13, 2025

 

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Adapted from this original story by Condia