Tanzania’s Ramani announces $32m Series A

Ramani, the African software company building a cloud network of micro-distribution centres for Africa’s $1 trillion consumer-packaged goods supply chain, has today announced the close of its $32 million series A round of equity and debt. The round was led by Flexcap Ventures and Jared Schreiber, founder of Infoscout.

In 2021, Ramani raised an undisclosed seed funding round that included participation from Village Global, Goat Capital, Musha Ventures, Hustle Fund, Future Africa, Launch Africa Ventures, Raba Capital, and angel investor, James Beshara. Ramani was originally backed by Y Combinator.

With this new capital funding, Ramani will scale its network of micro-distribution centres and also launch a new micro-credit offering.

Founded in 2019, Ramani is focused on fixing fragmented consumer goods supply chains that traditionally suffer from lack of data visibility and are burdened by limited access to financial services. To address these challenges, Ramani provides tech-enabled inventory management systems, procurement, and point of sale software to digitise the processes of micro-distribution centres, helping them gain real-time sales insights and inventory visibility. Ramani is then also able to leverage this data to offer up inventory with delayed payment terms, enabling them to scale. This year, the company acquired a lending licence from the Central Bank of Tanzania.

Commenting on the Series A, Ramani CEO and co-founder Iain Usiri said, “Ultimately, we want to make it easier for businesses to succeed in Africa and this new capital is another brick in that foundation. We’ve leveraged our Silicon Valley relationships and partnered with globally renowned investors, many of whom are successful founders themselves. We’re committed to repaying their faith in us and in Africa.”

Andrew Vigneault, co-founder and general partner of Flexcap Ventures added, “The CPG industry in Africa is being systematically transformed by Ramani’s huge ambition for a vastly improved and more efficient supply chain. It has been a pleasure to witness Ramani’s success and traction so far and we are certain the company will continue to achieve market-leading growth, fueled by a strong leadership team with exceptional technical expertise.”