Kola Market

What Kola Market does

Kola Market (legal entity: Kola Technologies Limited) is a Ghana-headquartered B2B platform that connects consumer goods brands to informal retailers across West Africa. The company operates against the structural problem that over 80% of consumer goods in the region move through market traders, kiosk owners, and roadside vendors who lack digital footprints, credit histories, and formal transaction data. Kola addresses this through three core commercial products on a shared infrastructure layer called Kola Grid: KolaScale, a managed field-activation service that places brands' products across a network of 6,000+ verified retailers via brand-dedicated activation managers and KolaAI Fellows, with retainers starting at GHS 15,000/month plus performance fees; Kola Graph, a real-time retail intelligence subscription starting at GHS 8,000/month that reports sell-through, pricing, and demand signals from the retailer base; and Kola Credit, a white-label credit scoring and SME banking portal for financial institutions, starting at GHS 50,000/month, built around 1,500+ scored informal MSMEs with a 96% repayment rate.

The platform's technology stack centers on Kola Grid, a proprietary intelligence layer aggregating real-time field data from the retailer network, and KolaAI, a conversational business advisor delivered through WhatsApp and IVR in Twi, Pidgin, Hausa, and English. KolaAI handles stock recommendations, order placement, credit qualification, and business coaching; OCR-based processing converts informal retailer financial records into structured inputs for credit scoring. The retailer-facing channel is free to retailers, while monetization is concentrated on brands (KolaScale, Kola Graph) and financial institutions (Kola Credit). GTM combines direct enterprise field sales with white-label platform licensing and a self-serve WhatsApp/IVR layer for the long tail of MSME retailers. Customer segments span consumer brands seeking West Africa entry (e.g., Agromyx, SK Global), banks and FIs seeking informal-retail credit deployment, and development partners pursuing impact-linked commercial returns. The company is led by Founder & CEO Marie-Reine Seshie, was founded in 2022, and has raised modest capital (up to $200,000 from Madica in April 2024 and a £315,000 GSMA Innovation Fund grant in November 2025) while operating with a 1–10 person team.

Name

Kola Market

Legal name

Kola Technologies Limited

Website

https://kola.market

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Kola Market is a Ghana-based B2B platform that connects consumer goods brands and financial institutions to 6,000+ verified informal retailers across West Africa via managed field activation, WhatsApp/IVR-delivered AI advisory (KolaAI), retail intelligence subscriptions, and a white-label credit scoring platform for MSMEs.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Retail Intelligence and Distribution Platform

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYHDAEAFAE

E-commerce & Retail CRM (Customer Data, Loyalty & Personalization)

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Enterprise Platforms & Databases/Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platforms

Keywords

• Retail intelligence platform
• Informal retail activation
• MSME credit scoring
• Consumer goods distribution
• AI business advisor

Headquarters

HQ city

Accra

HQ country

Ghana

HQ region

Africa

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. KolaScale Retainer: Monthly retainer fees for full-service West Africa market entry, including brand-dedicated activation managers, KolaAI Fellows, and performance fees on sales above baseline. Starting from GHS 15,000/month.
2. Kola Graph Subscription: Monthly subscription for real-time retail intelligence from 6,000+ MSMEs. Starting from GHS 8,000/month.
3. Kola Credit White-label: White-label platform licensing for financial institutions to access 1,500+ scored informal retailers. Starting from GHS 50,000/month.
4. Performance-based Fees: Performance fees charged on sales above baseline for KolaScale brand activation programs.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Kola Market is a B2B retail intelligence and activation platform that connects consumer brands to a network of 6,000+ verified informal retailers across Ghana and West Africa. It sells managed market-entry services (KolaScale), real-time retail intelligence subscriptions (Kola Graph), and a white-label MSME credit platform (Kola Credit), all underpinned by an AI-powered KolaAI business advisor delivered to retailers via WhatsApp and IVR in local languages.

Product overview

Kola Market is a B2B marketplace and retail intelligence platform connecting consumer brands to 6,000+ verified informal retailers across Ghana and West Africa. The platform operates a hub-and-spoke architecture built on the Kola Grid infrastructure, offering three core products: KolaScale for managed brand activation and market entry, Kola Graph for real-time retail intelligence, and Kola Credit for MSME financing. AI-powered KolaAI serves as an overlay advisor layer, delivering personalized stock recommendations and order automation to retailers via WhatsApp and IVR. Additional modules include Kola Retail for market discovery, Lagos to Accra Campaign for cross-border expansion, and assessment tools for market readiness and incentives.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• KolaScale: Full-service West Africa market entry solution for brands - places products on shelves, trains retailers, and activates sales
• Kola Graph
• Kola Credit
• KolaAI
• KolaAI Fellows

Products and services

• KolaScale Full-service West Africa market entry solution for consumer brands, placing products across 6,000+ verified informal retailers via brand-dedicated activation managers and KolaAI Fellows on consignment or pre-sell. Priced from GHS 15,000/month plus performance fees on sales above baseline; delivers first retailers stocking within a week and weekly field reports.
• Kola Credit White-label credit scoring and SME banking platform for financial institutions targeting informal retail MSMEs. Includes credit scoring for 1,500+ informal retailers, OCR-powered financial record digitization, an SME banking portal, and API or standalone deployment; all-time 96% MSME repayment rate. Priced from GHS 50,000/month.
• Kola Graph Real-time retail intelligence subscription offering live sales dashboards, category sell-through tracking, retailer coverage maps, and demand signal alerts sourced from 6,000+ informal retailers across Ghana and West Africa. Priced from GHS 8,000/month; reports delivered weekly, routed to brand teams automatically.
• KolaAI Conversational AI business advisor for informal retailers, providing personalized stock recommendations, automated order placement, credit qualification, and business coaching via WhatsApp and IVR in Twi, Pidgin, Hausa, and English. Operates on any phone and is delivered free to retailers.
• Kola Retail Market intelligence solution allowing brands to map the West Africa informal retail landscape and understand retailer segments, categories, and geographies before committing to full KolaScale activation.

Quantifiable outcome

• First retailers stocking within a week of sign-off (vs months for traditional distribution)
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators9 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Twiga Foods: One of the larger and more established B2B distribution platforms in Africa, serving informal retailers across fresh and FMCG categories. Comparable business model to KolaScale on the distribution side, with substantially greater scale and a B2C consumer brand arm.
• Jumia: Pan-African e-commerce and logistics platform with significant presence in Nigeria and Ghana, including B2B and last-mile capabilities that intersect with informal retailer distribution. Comparable as a broad retail-tech incumbent in the same geographies, but with a fundamentally different B2C-led model.

Direct peers

• Wasoko (formerly Sokowatch): Pan-African B2B distribution and retail-tech platform serving informal retailers with last-mile delivery, inventory financing, and retailer data — the closest direct competitor to KolaScale and Kola Credit, operating at materially larger scale across East and West Africa.
• TradeDepot: B2B retail-tech platform connecting FMCG brands to informal retailers in West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana), with embedded financing and retailer data. Directly comparable to Kola on geography, target customer base (informal retailers and consumer brands), and combined distribution-plus-credit offering.
• MarketForce: Kenya-headquartered B2B platform serving informal merchants with distribution, fintech, and RejaPay consumer credit. Comparable to Kola across the same three pillars (distribution, intelligence, credit), but with East Africa focus and a broader consumer-finance layer.

Emerging players

• Sabi: Nigeria-based B2B commerce platform that enables informal retailers to source inventory and access working capital, with growing retailer data assets. Comparable to Kola on retailer-side credit and FMCG distribution, but earlier-stage and Nigeria-focused.
• Alerzo: Nigeria-based B2B platform enabling informal retailers to procure inventory and access working capital through embedded credit. Comparable to KolaScale and Kola Credit on business model and target segment, but with Nigeria-only operations to date.
• Vendease: Africa-focused B2B food procurement and distribution platform serving restaurants and food retailers, with embedded financing. Comparable on distribution-plus-credit mechanics, though skewed toward food-service rather than informal retail end-customers.

Others

• Flutterwave: Pan-African payments and fintech infrastructure provider that increasingly targets SMEs and merchants with embedded financial services. Comparable as enabling infrastructure for digital commerce in Africa, but does not directly compete with Kola's distribution or retailer intelligence layers.
• M-Kopa: Pan-African fintech providing asset financing and digital financial services to underbanked customers using mobile-money rails and alternative credit scoring. Comparable to Kola Credit on the financial-inclusion and alternative-credit-scoring axes, but operates in asset financing rather than SME inventory credit.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UC33JJKKoGR7GZKq3BqLeY3Q
• Xx.com/KolaMarket
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/kola-market

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors3 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Kola Market