BoxCommerce is now the leading B2B e-commerce platform in Kenya having reached 5,400 merchants to make it 16 times larger than main competitor Shopify in the East African country.
Founded in 2017, BoxCommerce was created to allow merchants in emerging markets to sell online in under 10 minutes with payments and logistics built in. The startup has combined site development, payment, shipping and shop management into a single platform.
“What makes BoxCommerce different is that it is built for the markets it serves,” founder and CEO Craig McLeod told Disrupt Africa.
“That means building in payment methods that work like mobile money, and delivery that makes sense for the specific country. Instead of “one size fits all”, it is designed to work perfectly for the context and markets it serves. It also has the ability to run entirely off an entry level smartphone and includes complete social commerce thanks to being accelerated by Meta.”
BoxCommerce launched in Kenya as its first market in June 2022, and has since then signed up 5,400 merchants.
“We are now 16 times larger than Shopify in Kenya by number of merchants, and on track to be larger than Shopify in Africa and South East Asia in the next 12 months,” McLeod said.
“We are about to launch an e-commerce aggregator with M-Pesa, which will give merchants and consumers a far better marketplace alternative in Kenya. We are also expanding into Indonesia, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, with some big partnerships across MTN, Standard Bank, Microsoft, and Meta.”
BoxCommerce, which has handled transaction volumes of US$2 million in the last six months, is in the process of raising a Series A round of funding to finance its growth.
