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TradeDepot

“Can a B2B distribution platform for African retail become the dominant embedded credit and commerce infrastructure for the continent's millions of underbanked SME retailers?”

Founded2016
HQLagos, Nigeria (with US office at 1390 Market St, Suite 200, San Francisco, CA 94102)
Total raised$127M
Latest roundSeries B, December 2021
IndustryMarketplace / B2B e-commerce
The story

Founded in 2016 as a B2B distribution platform connecting international consumer goods brands (Nestlé, Unilever, Danone) to small retail stores across Africa. By 2020, TradeDepot identified that fragmented distribution and lack of financing were the core barriers for African SME retailers, and pivoted to embed Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) credit directly into its commerce platform. The $110M Series B in 2021 was explicitly to scale this embedded BNPL offering to five million SME retailers continent-wide, transforming TradeDepot from a logistics/distribution player into an embedded B2B fintech.

Last 12 months
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Product timeline
2016
TradeDepot founded to connect consumer goods brands and distributors to retail stores across Africa.· pivot
2018
Raised $3M seed round led by Partech to expand B2B distribution network in Nigeria.· banking
2020
Raised $10M Series A and began expansion into financial services and credit for African SMB retailers.· lending
2021
Raised $110M Series B (equity + debt) to scale BNPL services to five million SME retailers across Africa; expanded to Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.· lending
The stack
1 layer disclosed in TradeDepot’s embedded-finance stack
Lending
B2B BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) for SME retailersCash Advance
Accounting gap: none