Rwazi is a market intelligence platform that collects and provides actionable data from developing markets to help companies drive revenue and expand. Founded in 2021 by Joseph Rutakangwa and Eric Sewankambo, the startup is based in Mauritius and has a presence in 40+ countries across Africa, Asia, and South America.
The startup collects on-ground data on consumer buying patterns, prices, and preferences through a network of 20,000+ qualified data collectors known as “mappers”, which it then serves to for-profit, non-profit, and government organizations in a wide range of industries, including healthcare, consumer goods, automotive, education, finance, agriculture, energy, transportation, and media.
Rwazi’s unique advantage is its large and growing network of mappers spread across urban and rural areas in developing countries. Its platform provides near real-time insights for effective decision-making on expansion, investments, distribution, new product/service offerings, and reaching target audiences by collecting data from thousands of locations and consumers on a daily basis.
Rwazi’s customer dashboard provides in-depth analytics through customized reports and interactive maps tailored to each client’s specific requirements, offering insights on hyper-local pricing and packaging, important new retail locations, market gaps to fill, and customer sentiment towards specific brands. This data enables businesses to execute confidently in order to improve performance in existing markets and successfully enter new ones.
The startup recently secured $4 million in a seed funding round led by Bonfire Ventures, with participation from Newfund Capital and Alumni Ventures. The funds will be used to support Rwazi’s expansion plans and launch new products, including support for different languages to overcome a barrier to growth in some regions.
