GoBEBA, a Kenyan startup, intends to expand into four more cities over the next two years before moving to East and Central Africa. The company claims to be reinventing Africa’s utility supply chain to help provide the infrastructure that can handle the continent-wide explosion in urban growth.
GoBEBA is an online retailer of significant refillable necessities founded in 2019 by Lesley Mbogo, a former head of products at Amazon, and Peter Ndiang’ui, a former general manager of OLX.
The group has created a solid technological foundation to manage a network of micro-fulfilling centres for distributed administration, and it intends to keep automating these centres using robotics and AI.
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Ndiang’ui said they provide large-scale, unpiped utilities in African cities, such as cooking energy and drinking water.
He also highlighted the challenges (water supply, sanitation and energy supply) of finding a business model that offers convenience without increasing product cost while maintaining sustainable unit economics in high-traffic cities.
GoBEBA: The Future of Convenience Shopping
GoBEBA exceeds the growth of 20th-century retail by distributing everyday necessities more effectively through technology-enabled means rather than traditional, modern physical shop formats in African cities, according to Ndiang’ui. GoBEBA enables customers to order daily essentials and deliver them to their doorstep in less than an hour.
Based on what Ndiang’ui commented, Africa is quickly becoming more developed. The expanding urban population creates a massive demand for unpiped services due to the lack of piped infrastructure.
In 2023, Africa experienced the highest growth rate in bottled water demand. However, the infrastructure to distribute the unpiped utilities is broken. Customers endure high levels of inconvenience, unpredictable availability and growing safety concerns.
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GoBEBA: Bridging the infrastructure gap in Urban Africa
Africa is experiencing rapid development, with millions moving to cities yearly. The quick growth leads to a demand for essential services such as water, sanitation, and energy. However, the infrastructure in many African cities is inadequate to meet this pressing demand, resulting in a significant gap in the provision of piped services. This brings a big concern for GoBEBA.
GoBEBA is on track to address these challenges through innovative solutions and technologies that are being developed to provide unpiped services.
These unpiped services have the potential to bridge the infrastructure gap, providing affordable, efficient, and sustainable solutions for urban Africa’s growing population. By leveraging technology and innovation, Africa can leapfrog traditional development pathways and create a more resilient, inclusive, and prosperous future for its citizens.