Tanzania’s Ramani announces $32M Series A, to introduce new financial services

Ramani, the African software company building a cloud network of micro-distribution centres for Africa’s $1 Trillion consumer-packaged goods supply chain, has today announced the close of its $ 32 million series A round of equity & debt.

Founded by Iain Usiri, Calvin Usiri and Kibet Martin, Ramani is a software platform that captures supply chain data to drive sales visibility and enable micro-distribution centres to access financial services.

Ramani enables African Micro-distribution centres to track their inventory, register their customers and record their sales transactions. The company helps users to gain operational visibility and structure as well as market insights that allow them to increase their revenue and market share.

Some of the platform’s features include real-time tracking, sales targets, inventory tracking, geo-fencing, check-in history, rewards, and discounts.

With this new capital funding, it will scale its network of micro-distribution centres (MDCs) and launch a new micro-credit offering for select MDCs. The series A round was led by renowned global technology investors Flexcap Ventures and revered founder/CEO of Infoscout, Jared Schreiber.

Ramani was originally backed by Y combinator and raised undisclosed seed funding in 2021 that included participation from Village Global, Goat Capital, Musha Ventures, Hustle Fund, Future Africa, Launch Africa Ventures, Raba capital, and renowned angel investor James Beshara.

Commenting on the Series A, Ramani CEO and Co-founder Iain Usiri said, “We’ve leveraged our Silicon Valley relationships and partnered with globally renowned investors, many of whom are successful founders themselves. We’re committed to repaying their faith in Africa and in us.” 

Ultimately, we want to make it easier for businesses to succeed in Africa and this new capital is another brick in that foundation.

Ramani CEO and Co-founder Iain Usiri

Andrew Vigneault, Co-founder and General Partner of Flexcap Ventures, added, “Ramani’s huge ambition is systematically transforming the CPG industry in Africa for a vastly improved and more efficient supply chain. It has been a pleasure to witness Ramani’s success and traction. We are certain the company will continue to achieve market-leading growth, fueled by a strong leadership team with exceptional technical expertise.” 

Read also: Venture funding in Africa fell by 54% in Q3 2022 – report

Ramani Founders and mission

Ramani was founded in 2019 by Tanzanian-born brothers Iain and Calvin Usiri, and Kibet Martin, born and raised in Kenya. They have backgrounds in Computer Science and Finance from Stanford, Google, Salesforce and CapGemini.

Their decision to return home to build an industry-defining product was buoyed by personal conviction to harness their skills and ingenuity and solve local challenges. Ramani joins other companies such as Wasoko, Tushop and Pando DAO to operate out of Silicon Zanzibar, the public-private initiative to attract and relocate tech companies and workers from across Africa and beyond to the island of Zanzibar.

Ramani is focused on fixing fragmented consumer goods supply chains that traditionally suffer from a lack of data visibility and are burdened by limited access to financial services.

To address these challenges, Ramani provides tech-enabled inventory management systems, procurement, and point-of-sale software to digitise the processes of MDCs, helping them gain real-time sales insights and inventory visibility.

The platform is then also able to leverage this data to offer up inventory with delayed payment terms, enabling them to scale. This year, the company acquired a lending license from the Central Bank of Tanzania to scale its customers further. 

MDCs in the network have grown their revenues by at least 20% since subscribing and leveraging the platform’s diverse functionalities, such as real-time inventory tracking. The upcoming microcredit vertical will give qualified resellers access to interest-free credit lines to help them manage their cash flow more efficiently.

Ramani also plans to create ways in which everyday Africans can earn a passive income from the trillion-dollar CPG industry by investing with the company.