The archive · Commerce & Marketplaces · Strategic decision · 2016–2025
Wasoko's B2B bet: $125M round, MaxAB merger, then a pivot to merchant fintech
Wasoko raised $125M at $625M to digitize Africa's informal retail; after retrenchment it merged with MaxAB and now bets merchant fintech pays.
Wasoko
What the business is
B2B e-commerce platform that lets Africa's informal corner shops order fast-moving consumer goods by app or SMS and get free same-day delivery, plus credit scored on their purchases.
Starting capital：US$14M Series A (2020); US$125M Series B (March 2022, led by Tiger Global and Avenir Growth) at a US$625M valuation; roughly US$240M raised by Wasoko and MaxAB combined
How it started
Daniel Yu founded Sokowatch (renamed Wasoko) in Nairobi to serve Africa's informal retail channel, where mom-and-pop shops sell hundreds of billions of dollars of consumer goods each year. The platform let stores order stock via SMS or app and receive free same-day delivery, attacking stockouts, cash-flow gaps and fragmented supply.
What happened
After a US$14M Series A in 2020, Wasoko raised a US$125M Series B led by Tiger Global and Avenir Growth in March 2022 at a US$625M valuation, rebranding from Sokowatch and entering Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire with claims of 50,000+ merchants and 2.5M orders delivered. The West Africa push failed: those operations shut in 2023, and it scaled back from eight markets to five. In December 2023 it agreed an all-stock merger with Egypt's MaxAB, completed in August 2024, creating a group claiming 450,000 registered merchants across Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Rwanda and Tanzania.
How it ended up
The merged group is still operating and pivoting to fintech: over US$20M in merchant credit disbursed with 99%+ repayment, an Egypt fintech vertical generating roughly US$180M in annual turnover, and e-commerce profitable in three of five markets. It has raised no new capital since 2022, VNV Global has marked its stake down, and co-founder Daniel Yu left day-to-day leadership in September 2025 as MaxAB's Belal El-Megharbel took over as CEO.
Background
Wasoko (formerly Sokowatch) is a Kenyan B2B e-commerce company that let Africa's informal corner shops order fast-moving consumer goods by SMS or app and get free same-day delivery, with buy-now-pay-later credit scored on their own purchase history. Founder Daniel Yu started it in Nairobi to fix the stockouts, cash gaps and fragmented supply that define the continent's mom-and-pop retail channel.
The bet was that tech-enabled distribution could profitably serve that channel at scale — and that the resulting merchant network and data would unlock higher-margin financial services. In March 2022 Wasoko raised a US$125M Series B led by Tiger Global and Avenir Growth at a US$625M valuation and rebranded while entering Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, claiming 50,000+ merchants and 2.5M orders delivered. Within two years it had shut its West Africa operations and pulled back from eight markets to five.
In December 2023 Wasoko agreed an all-stock merger with Egypt's MaxAB, completed in August 2024, creating a group claiming 450,000 registered merchants (roughly 200,000 active per co-CEO Daniel Yu) across Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Rwanda and Tanzania, with around US$240M raised by the two companies combined. The merged entity has pivoted toward fintech: over US$20M in merchant credit disbursed with repayment above 99%, and an Egypt fintech vertical doing roughly US$180M in annual turnover.
The group raised no new capital after 2022, VNV Global has repeatedly marked its stake down, and Yu stepped back from day-to-day leadership in September 2025, leaving MaxAB co-founder Belal El-Megharbel as CEO in Cairo. The company now frames profitability, not GMV, as the goal, with e-commerce profitable in three of its five markets.
What has to be true
- Informal retail is the dominant channel in Africa — hundreds of billions of dollars of goods sell through corner shops — so the wedge looked huge and underserved.
- Purchase data gave Wasoko a proprietary credit signal: it could lend to shops no bank would touch, based on repayment history it generated itself.
- Mega-rounds from Tiger Global and Avenir funded geographic expansion, but expansion into West Africa proved operationally unmanageable and was reversed.
- The all-stock merger with MaxAB cut duplicated overhead and added Egypt, letting the group claim pan-African scale without raising new equity.
- Investors' markdowns and the 2022–2024 funding freeze forced the pivot from GMV growth to fintech margins.
What can be applied
High-volume distribution in fragmented emerging markets earns thin margins; the durable asset is the shop network and its purchase data, so the money lives in fintech layered on top.
Aftermath
As of the sources checked, the merged Wasoko-MaxAB group still runs in Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Rwanda and Tanzania, led by CEO Belal El-Megharbel after Daniel Yu stepped back in September 2025. It is scaling fintech — merchant financing, payments and digital services — reporting US$20M+ in merchant credit with 99%+ repayment and an Egypt fintech vertical doing roughly US$180M in annual turnover. It has raised no new equity since 2022; VNV Global has marked its stake down and no new valuation is disclosed. COMESA opened a merger probe in late 2025. The stated goal is full group profitability.
Sources
- African B2B e-commerce startups Wasoko and MaxAB complete merger: Interview with co-CEO Daniel Yu
- Sokowatch, now Wasoko, expands to West Africa after closing $125m Series B
- Wasoko and MaxAB turn to fintech to boost profits following merger
- Wasoko co-founder Daniel Yu steps down a year after merger with MaxAB
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