ABA Editorial · Nov 23, 2025 · 13 min read
Between 2020 and 2022, African B2B e-commerce startups raised over USD 400 million to digitize informal retail. By 2025, most had pivoted, merged, or shut down. The survivors are the ones who understood embedded finance is the real business. Inside OmniRetail's USD 810 million transaction engine, the Wasoko-MaxAB merger, and the sector-wide shift from trucks to transactions.
In 2021, the African B2B e-commerce thesis was the hottest venture story on the continent. The pitch was compelling: the informal retail sector on the continent represented over USD 1.4 trillion in annual spending, split across millions of mom-and-pop shops that bought their inventory through fragmented, inefficient supply chains. Technology-enabled platforms could consolidate that demand, negotiate better prices with suppliers, deliver goods reliably, and offer working capital credit on top. Replace the distributors. Own the rails. Collect the margin.
The companies that raised capital on this thesis are familiar names. Wasoko (formerly Sokowatch) in Kenya. MaxAB in Egypt. Sabi and Alerzo and TradeDepot and OmniBiz in Nigeria. MarketForce in Kenya. Twiga Foods for fresh produce. Between 2020 and 2022 alone, these startups raised over USD 400 million in venture capital and debt according to industry trackers. Tiger Global led Wasoko's USD 125 million Series B in March 2022 at a USD 625 million valuation. The sector looked unstoppable.
By 2025, most of the full-stack model had collapsed. This is a market report on what happened, which companies survived, and why the survivors all share one thing in common: they figured out that embedded finance, not FMCG distribution, was the actual business the whole time.
The full-stack B2B e-commerce model had fundamental economic problems that the 2021 funding environment was papering over. FMCG wholesale margins are typically 3 to 6 percent, depending on category and scale. To serve small informal retailers profitably at those margins required either very high transaction volumes, very low operating costs, or both. Most of the venture-backed players tried to deliver high volumes by buying their own trucks, building their own warehouses, and hiring their own sales forces. That turned them into capital-intensive distribution companies competing with traditional distributors whose cost structures were lower. Alerzo at its peak owned over 200 vehicles and 20 warehouses. Vendease invested heavily in trucks, cold storage, and bulk procurement. All of this was expensive, and the venture capital funding it was not permanent.
When the global funding winter hit in late 2022 and 2023, the companies dependent on constant equity top-ups to cover their fixed costs were stranded. The list of casualties is long. Zumi and Wabi shut down. Copia Global closed. MarketForce terminated its B2B e-commerce operation and pivoted. Alerzo shuttered 14 warehouses and laid off 400 employees in a single round. Twiga and Wasoko and MaxAB all conducted significant layoffs and warehouse closures.
Several players tried to rescue their economics by layering in working capital lending to shopkeepers. The logic was obvious: a platform that already has digitized order history from thousands of retailers should be able to underwrite credit to them better than any bank could. But lending proved to be a harder business than expected. Vendease's lending operations struggled. MarketForce's RejaReja platform faced retailer repayment difficulties that impacted cash flow. At least two major players suffered significant loan losses and paused lending entirely.
In late 2024, Wasoko and MaxAB announced a merger, combining the largest East African and North African B2B platforms into a single entity. In 2025, the merged MaxAB-Wasoko entity wound down its Moroccan online marketplace operations to focus on financial services. Sabi, after claiming USD 1 billion gross merchandise value and 200,000 merchants at its peak, laid off staff and pivoted toward supply chain traceability and export infrastructure, moving away from pure FMCG distribution.
The clearest success story in the sector is OmniRetail, founded in Lagos in 2019 by Deepankar Rustagi. OmniRetail's model was always asset-light. The platform (branded OmniBiz for retailers) connects small shops to distributors via an app, and the actual logistics are handled by a third-party network of approximately 1,100 vehicles and 85 warehouse partners. OmniRetail does not own trucks. It does not own warehouses. It connects the existing trade network to a digital layer and takes a cut.
OmniRetail reached EBITDA positive in 2023 and net profitable in 2024, making it one of the few African B2B e-commerce companies to achieve profitability at scale. In April 2025, when the company announced its USD 20 million Series A funding round, CEO Rustagi disclosed the numbers that matter. The company's fintech engine, OmniPay, processed over 1.3 trillion Nigerian naira (approximately USD 810 million) in transactions in 2024. OmniPay disburses 19 billion naira (USD 12 million) in buy-now-pay-later inventory credit to retailers, with non-performing loan ratios below 0.5 percent. OmniPay processes approximately USD 95 million monthly and disburses approximately USD 4 million in loans monthly.
These numbers tell a story. OmniRetail's distribution business (connecting retailers to manufacturers and distributors) generates transaction volume. That volume generates payment flows. Payment flows generate rich transaction data. Transaction data enables dynamic credit scoring for retailers who are invisible to traditional banks. And the embedded credit, priced at working-capital spreads, is more profitable than the distribution business that generated it. As Rustagi told Launch Base Africa, "Engaging with distributors on the platform and embedding working capital tools like OmniPay increased the value chain margin for us to hit profitability." The distribution business funds the funnel. The fintech business funds the company.
OmniRetail's 2024 acquisition of Traction Apps, a payment solutions provider for small merchants, confirmed the direction. The company now works with 13 financial service providers on its integration layer, connects 130 manufacturers (including Guinness, CHI, and Dufil Prima Foods) with 14 banks and logistics providers, and reaches over 150,000 small retail stores in Nigeria.
The OmniRetail playbook is now the template. Every surviving B2B e-commerce platform has shifted toward embedded finance as its primary value proposition. Wasoko always financed its buy-now-pay-later option from its own balance sheet rather than raising a separate debt facility, a discipline that proved prescient. Its differentiated-pricing approach (BNPL inventory costs retailers approximately 2 percent more than cash payments on average, which is also Sharia-compliant) doubles average order value without increasing customer acquisition costs, according to data the company published through The Flip newsletter.
Chari in Morocco has followed the same logic. The company raised its record Moroccan Series A (USD 12 million in October 2025) and secured its Bank Al-Maghrib payment institution license on the same day, signaling clearly that its future is embedded payments and credit rather than pure FMCG distribution. Sabi pivoted to supply chain traceability and export infrastructure, monetizing the data layer that sits above its original B2B commerce business. MarketForce, once a hybrid logistics-and-lending platform, terminated its B2B e-commerce operations and focused on its fintech offerings.
The structural insight across all of these companies is the same: the real value is not in moving goods, it is in monetizing the financial services layered on top of commerce. Embedded credit, embedded payments, and embedded BNPL offer stronger margins and more recurring revenue than distribution alone. A platform that can extend USD 12 million in monthly working capital credit with sub-0.5 percent NPLs is running a high-margin, scalable business. A platform that is trying to deliver USD 12 million in physical FMCG goods per month is running a logistics business with 3 to 6 percent gross margins and significant capex.
The mechanics of embedded finance in African B2B marketplaces break down into three product categories.
Buy-now-pay-later inventory credit. The retailer orders goods worth, say, USD 200. Instead of paying upfront, the retailer takes delivery and pays over 14 or 30 days. The platform either raises debt facilities to fund the credit (TradeDepot, OmniRetail's approach) or finances it from its own balance sheet (Wasoko's approach). Credit decisions are made algorithmically from the retailer's order history, collection behavior, and platform activity. Default rates on well-underwritten B2B inventory credit are dramatically lower than consumer lending (OmniPay's below-0.5 percent NPLs are the benchmark).
Embedded payment processing. The platform handles payments between retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, taking a cut on each transaction. OmniRetail's integration with 13 financial service providers is a payment orchestration layer, and OmniPay's 1.3 trillion naira annual volume reflects this. The economics are similar to any payment gateway business: small percentages multiplied by very large volumes.
Working capital loans against receivables. For larger retailers and distributors, the platform extends term loans collateralized by future receivables on the platform itself. This is effectively factoring, with the platform's data visibility reducing underwriting risk below what a traditional bank could achieve.
Three developments to track through 2026. First, whether the B2B e-commerce consolidation wave continues. The Wasoko-MaxAB merger and the sector-wide layoffs suggest more consolidation is likely. Expect at least one more significant merger or acquisition in 2026. Second, whether embedded finance revenue from B2B platforms starts showing up as a distinct category in African venture capital reports. Currently it is subsumed under "fintech" in Partech data and similar trackers. When it becomes its own line item, the sector will have graduated. Third, whether the low-NPL performance of early B2B embedded lenders (OmniPay, Wasoko) survives a macro downturn. Most of the 2024-2025 performance data was collected in relatively benign conditions. A sharp recession in any major African market would stress-test the underwriting models in ways they have not yet been stress-tested.
For founders building new ventures in this space, the lesson of the 2022-2025 shakeout is clear. Do not try to own the trucks. Do not try to compete with existing distributors on their own ground. Build the payment and credit rails first, let the distribution business feed them data and volume, and measure success by financial services revenue rather than by gross merchandise value. The companies that understood this are the ones still standing in 2026.
This report draws on WeeTracker coverage of the African B2B e-commerce shakeout and strategic pivots (July 2025 and February 2026); TechCrunch reporting on OmniRetail's USD 20 million Series A and profitability milestones (March 2024 and April 2025); TechCrunch coverage of the Wasoko USD 125 million Series B (March 2022); The Flip newsletter's deep dive on Wasoko and B2B commerce business models; CB Insights company profiles for OmniRetail, Sabi, MarketForce, and Wasoko; Tech Awkng analysis of the African B2B e-commerce shakeout (February 2026); and Launch Base Africa interviews with OmniRetail CEO Deepankar Rustagi.