Birame Sock’s first business was not Musicphone, a US company that partnered with UK Shazam Entertainment to give American users their very first music recognition service back in 2004. Rather, the serial entrepreneur’s journey began when she was 13, living in Niger, selling ice. Since then, Sock has built highly impactful companies like the intuitive media platform, VOO Media Group and TS Investment Holding (formerly Third Solutions Inc.), a leading digital receipts platform. Her newest venture, Kwely Inc., works with local African producers to source the best products and turn them into export-ready brands. Sock talks to AMAKA about Kwely’s vision to give local African brands access to the world.
Armed with a confident tagline—‘The Source of African Quality’—Kwely Inc. is a three-in-one company solving the problem of the negative and under-represented image that ‘Made in Africa’ has in the global e-commerce industry. Based in Senegal, the company’s approach is to create local brands that appeal to the international market, by building a digital commerce platform equipped with the latest technology and a hands-on sales team. And build packaging facilities whose high-quality package methods will allow African products to compete in the global market.
Sock understands this is an enormous task that requires time and resources. “The difference between starting a company in the US, and starting a company in Africa is that in Africa, you're not building a start-up, you're building an ecosystem.” In April 2022, Kwely raised $700,000 from investors, including WIC Capital, Loftyinc Capital and Haskè Ventures to complete its US$1 million seed funding round. As the company prepares to launch its digital platform and bring to market the various brands in its portfolio, this round of funding will be used to support its marketing and distribution efforts.
Commenting on the seed funding round, Idris Ayodeji Bello, founding partner at LoftyInc Capital, said: “As investors focused on the future of Africa, we believe Kwely has a critical role to play in fulfilling wholesale orders through collective production across suppliers.”
Elaborating on her entrepreneurial journey, Sock said: “It wasn’t that I was telling myself I’m an entrepreneur, and I’m going to be so successful. No. It was having an idea, feeling very strongly about it, and doing whatever it took to make it happen.” In 2010, she was awarded the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for North America.
Building for impact
Birame Sock: We want to have the same impact Alibaba had on the informal industrial sector in China and to do the same with the non-industrial production sector. That’s also why we are B2B, not B2C.
I think the biggest difference between China and where we are in Africa is that, here, there’s a very strong traditional sense of know-how that is embedded in the way we do things but our work is largely still in the artisan, semi-manual, semi-industrial form. Our goal is to be able to give the world access to that richness of Africa and give these local producers access to the world.
The vision is that the local producers will end up creating an industrial sector to support exports but to do that, you have to create international demand. Once you're able to validate the demand, it’s then easier to attract the funding.
After doing a lot of research, we saw that a number of marketplace websites out there just connect the buyer with the seller and the conversation dies down, sometimes even before it starts. So, we intervene in the gap of communication by essentially doing three things. We combine the technology of the platform with the human factor of account managers. And even before we get to the marketplace, we work with the producers to package the products to meet international food and drug standards. We work with them to spell out the ingredients, the nutritional facts and certifications that come with the product. And then we identify distribution strategies that speak effectively to the target export market.
Speaking of ecosystems, what has walked so Kwely can run? What are you building on, in terms of already-existing innovations in the e-commerce landscape?
Payments and logistics.
In the digital startup world, those are the two sectors that are doing the best so far in Africa. When we talk about e-commerce in Africa, JUMIA is the one that I think is the furthest ahead but even that has slowed down and it is B2C. The current e-commerce landscape is also based on general norms of e-commerce; meaning the customer browses on the platform, pays and their goods are delivered to them. When it comes to B2B, you need customisation, purchase order, and more. So, from a digital platform perspective, we have had to build it from scratch.
But from a payments and logistics standpoint, we are able to leverage all of the different solutions that are out there today. If we want to be able to pay back the producers for the money that they earned from the sale we can do it using mobile money. Thanks to what is already out there, transfers are a lot easier and banks are more open. If not, what we are doing would have been completely impossible.
Changing the perception of ‘Made in Africa’
Who’s your target market and what should they expect from Kwely’s digital platform? What experience are you trying to give them?
Right now, it’s mostly food and cosmetics producers because we feel that the international market is ready for that. We plan to look at textiles next but fashion is a very different beast. Last year, we launched our very first Tekky Challenge in Senegal, a competition for local producers and we selected 10. We have now been working with those 10 on their branding, packaging and research to make sure their product is ready for export.
On the food side, one example I can give is a grilled peanuts business. The woman running it developed it from her mother who used to sell grilled peanuts and cashew nuts in front of her home. She is doing well in the Senegalese market but the packaging is in French and cannot be exported to English-speaking countries. It also does not have the nutritional facts and so does not meet food exporting standards. A lot of these businesses are perceived to be doing well within their country’s market, but they want to expand to export, so we help them create a new brand and new types of packaging.
We are now in the middle of the selection process for the next 15 in Senegal before we launch the next challenge in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya and Nigeria. Our number one rule is that the products have to be either based on ingredients that are sourced locally or ingredients that are based on a traditional processing technique. Take the woman’s grilled nuts for example, when you taste them, they taste different from what you would find in the US because in the US, the grilled nuts are roasted in fat. But here, you find that it is often salinated beforehand, chargrilled and then sweetened or flavoured with a mix of peppers and spices.
The goal is to be the leading B2B e-commerce platform, but when that goal is met, what impact does Kwely seek to make with that position of power?
If we get to such a position, there’s the standard list: job creation, GDP growth, etc. But to us, it’s more about the recognition of ‘Made in Africa’ products. The impact that a changed perception of ‘Made in Africa’ products will have is at so many different layers.
If someone starts consuming and learning a little bit more about the baobab powder, maybe they'll want to even come to Africa to discover what the baobab tree looks like, and how majestic and how spiritual it is. On the economics level, our intended impact would be for people to be able to say: "look at this, everything about it was done artistically but there’s an industry for it and our exports are booming. Now the rest of the world is coming to source in Africa the same way they were previously dependent on Asia.”
Seeing the future, thinking ahead
Government policy and infrastructure are often cited as the bane of many businesses operating in Africa. Do you anticipate this for Kwely, especially with Kwely’s plans for pan-African coverage? How best do you think that African governments can support e-commerce businesses like yours?
What we are doing feels like something that people would expect the government to be able to do. So, from a policy standpoint, it would be helpful to have government support all across the board, especially in terms of making it easier to set up packaging centres in different countries. They are already doing some things, such as The Free Trade Agreement which will help boost trade within the different African countries.
But there are more difficult things such as when it comes to attracting funding. Usually, foreign investors will ask you to register your company in Delaware because US laws are more investor-friendly. And also because once money comes into, in my case, a Senegalese bank account it is very difficult to pay for bills outside of Senegal. I’m currently struggling with how to wire money through to China to buy packaging materials and my best option right now is to figure out ways to get that money in USD before I can send it to China.
In getting people (customers and investors) to buy into your business idea, what has been your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge right now is that we're in a business where we have to change perception. It requires a lot of evangelising, more time, and more money. People can hardly envision it so they expect us to have the three-in-one product in hand before they get it.
For the investors, investing in a company that's based in Africa presents more risks. Additionally, they are usually focused on investing in a one-type business, not a three-in-one business as Kwely is. Usually, venture capital likes to invest in the digital platform side of things. They are not necessarily interested in investing on the impact side of things where we want to support businesses with their branding because that does not make money; or the factory side of things which we need for the packaging because that is capital-intensive.
Yet, you and your team are doing it anyway! What’s superpower?
I would say ‘seeing the future’ but it is less that, and more thinking ahead. Sometimes, not everyone understands why I’m concerned about something but I have already thought through it, five steps forward. And maybe it is less a superpower and just how I’m wired, as an engineer and an entrepreneur who has always done a lot in the creative industry. Being able to switch hats, depending on what I'm working on, has been very beneficial. It's complicated for people because they don't understand you. They can't put you in a box. But for me, it's been beneficial.
