Rwazi, a market intelligence startup, has secured $4 million in funding led by Bonfire Ventures and saw participation from Newfund Capital and Alumni Ventures.
Launched in 2021 by Raoseph Rutakangwa and Eric Sewankambo, Rwazi is a market intelligence platform that provides companies with actionable data from developing markets to help in revenue and expansion. The startup is now scaling in emerging markets, including in Africa, where it claims to already have a presence in 40 countries.
Rwazi, which was part of the Techstars Los Angeles accelerator program last year, currently has a network of 50,000 consumers. Its customers include 18 multinational corporations that track more than 200 different products across sectors including fast-moving consumer goods, healthcare, telecommunications, and financial services.4
The startup gets users to log their purchases through a web or mobile app, and after their submissions are verified, compensates them for the effort. The startup decided to source data directly from consumers after several ineffective iterations that had it using agents and sales teams.
“By using Rwazi, multinationals access data on who is buying what, for how much, from where, when and why, to help them drive revenue and expand. Because brands are getting data from the horse’s mouth and can see how consumers are making purchasing decisions, they can do hyper-local messaging, pricing and packaging,” said Rutakangwa.
Commenting, Raoseph Rutakangwa Rwazi co-founder said: “We launched Rwazi because we had to try to obtain timely market insights in our previous jobs, which helped us understand how frustrating the process could get and how valuable that information could be.” He says most available data, often collected by state agencies, is either outdated or focuses on general trends, and lacks the granularity that is needed to make accurate decisions.
