Nigeria’s Bumpa, Kenya’s Flowcart secure undisclosed funding led by Jobtech Alliance

Following a landscape scan of digital services for microenterprises throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, Jobtech Alliance raised an undisclosed sum of money for Nigeria’s Bumpa and Kenya’s Flowcart, two e-commerce businesses.

The Jobtech Alliance, an ecosystem-building initiative around inclusive jobtech in Africa led by Mercy Corps and BFA Global, was reported by the media in October 2022. The initiative’s goal is to create an environment that encourages entrepreneurs to create platforms that provide high-quality livelihoods, are inclusive, and allow users to engage in decent work.

In addition to running multiple cohorts, it is currently investing directly in pertinent businesses. Its research on digital services for microenterprises revealed that, for the 80% of Africans whose livelihoods depend on MSMEs, operations rather than customers are the barrier. This led to its investments in Kenya’s Flowcart and Nigeria’s Bumpa.

“African commerce runs on conversation, informal trust and fragmented logistics, not checkout flows. Our investment thesis is that platforms built to introduce structure beneath that existing behaviour, rather than replace it with new marketplaces, are the ones that will scale, improve merchant incomes and unlock financial inclusion. Flowcart does this at the supply and distribution layer; Bumpa does it at the point of sale,” Jobtech Alliance said.

While Bumpa streamlines business operations with tools that make inventory, sales, orders, and customer management simple, Flowcart is an AI-powered conversational commerce and CRM platform built on WhatsApp.