1) AFRIMARKET was launched in 2013 to revolutionize money transfers from the African diaspora by allowing senders to purchase goods/services rather than sending cash, with the goal of reducing transfer costs from 12.5% to 5%. 2) The innovation uses electronic vouchers authenticated through a sound-based technology and redeemed at partner stores. 3) Over time, AFRIMARKET has expanded its services from money transfers to e-commerce marketplaces in multiple African countries, while adapting its processes based on market feedback.

1. AFRIMARKET
Revolutionizing the money transfer business
in Africa
By
Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA
EMBA TEM 2016
Sociology of ICT case

2. AFRIMARKET – By Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA – TEM 2016 Page 2
Context and opportunity
AFRIMARKET was launched in March 2013 by three co-founders from top French business
and engineering schools:
 Rania Belkahia, from Telecom Paritech and HEC,
 Jérémy Stoss, from ESCP,
 François Sevaistre, from Polytechnique and HEC.
The startup’s business is mainly to help African people from the diaspora to send goods and
services to their families at home instead of cash.
Rania and François met at HEC Entrepreneur where they shared the need for starting a
business of their own. The idea of AFRIMARKET really emerged when Rania met Jérémy
during an internship at POLYCONSEIL, a consulting company operating in Africa. Jérémy has
been living in Africa for many years, especially in Côte d’Ivoire, with a strong expertise in
finance and private equities. When analyzing the data and process of money transfer from
the African diaspora to the continent, they came to the conclusion that an optimization was
possible and that there could be a huge business opportunity.
For instance, data from the World Bank showed that in year 2011, the amount of
remittances from the African diaspora in African financial inflows (60 Billion USD), was
higher than the official development assistance (56 Billion USD), and Foreign Development
Investment (50 Billion USD) (Worldbank, 2011). They also noticed that the average cost of
money transfer transactions to Africa was very high (12.5% compared to 6.5% for South
America or 8% on average worldwide). Furthermore, when talking to people in the African
diaspora, they identified another issue, that the transferred money was not used for the
initial purpose in most cases. For example, the money sent for meeting the feeding needs of
a family of for health care, was usually partly used by the person in charge of collecting
Innovation
The innovation consists in changing completely the money transfer process of the African
diaspora by:
 Sending electronic vouchers for goods (food, books, building materials…) or services
(doctor examination…) instead of sending cash. It is referred to as “cash to goods”.
The vouchers can be used within a network of partner stores and professionals for
different services.
 Providing a mean for senders to have a better control over the final use of the money
sent.
 Reducing dramatically the transfer costs, from 12.5% to 5%.
Technology
The system uses a complex Back office, to manage the entire ecosystem (users, payments,
partners), and generate the vouchers.

3. AFRIMARKET – By Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA – TEM 2016 Page 3
Near Sound Data Transfer (NSDTTM
), a patented sound based authentication technology
(TagPay), is used in order to authenticate the electronic vouchers through a dedicated
terminal installed at the partner’s premises.
Figure 1: TagPay NSDT platform (source tagpay.fr)
How does it work?
The global process is described below as it was at the time of initial launch of the service:
1. The sender registers on an online platform
2. For a given money transaction, the sender selects the amount to be sent and gives
the identity and mobile number of the receiver
3. The sender pays online via credit card
4. The system sends an electronic voucher to the receiver
5. The receiver authenticates through NSDTTM
within the partners network and collects
his goods or service at partner’s premises.
6. A notification is sent to the sender

4. AFRIMARKET – By Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA – TEM 2016 Page 4
Figure 2: NSDT authentication process (source afrimaket.com)
Market and business model
The estimated market as mentioned earlier is around 60 Billion USD, that is the total
remittance from the African diaspora. The objective of AFRIMARKET is to cover as much as
10% of this market totally dominated by two big players (Western Union and Moneygram).
The revenue structure consists of a 5% commission collected for every transfer transaction
Steps of the trajectory
The main steps of the trajectory can be summarized as follows:
Period Event
March 2013 Company creation
March 2013 Partnership with Tagattitude for authentication using the TagPay
platform (mobilepaymentstoday.com, 2013)
During 2013 The team spent several months in Abidjan during the year 2013, in order
to test their prototype and the acceptability of the product by potential
partners and end users.
June 2013 Commercial launch in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
July 2013 The company realizes it first fund raising of 500.000 euros. Business
angels include Xavier Niel (Free) and Jacques-Antoine Granjon (Vente-
privee.com)
End 2013 Commercial launch in Senegal Togo and Benin
February 2014 Partnership with Bank Of Africa; the partnership allows the payment of
Money transfer in cash at BOA offices
April 2014 The company enters the Orange Accelerator “Orange Fab Lab”
January 2015 The company realizes it second fund raising of 2.5 Million euros. Orange
and BIM invest 1 Million euros each, while historical business angels
invest 500.000 euros.
August 2015 The company launches an e-commerce site for the Ivorian market.
End 2015 The company launches e-commerce sites for Senegal, Benin and Togolese

5. AFRIMARKET – By Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA – TEM 2016 Page 5
markets.
March 2016 The company launches an e-commerce site for the Cameroonian market.
Process of adaptation
The service offered by AFRIMARKET and its processes evolved overtime, showing that the
company listens to the market and constantly tries to adapt its strategy and operations.
When the company started its operation, the service was accessible only through a website
and the users (money transfer senders from the African diaspora) needed to register online
with their e-mail, and buy with credit cards.
Later on the company realized that not so many potential users where online; most of them
didn’t have an e-mail address, and for those who could buy online, there was a big issue
regarding the security of online transactions (media.mobi, 2015). To overcome this problem,
the company adapted its processes by partnering with Bank Of Africa (BOA), a financial
institution where 100% clients are from the African diaspora in France. Therefore, any user
of the service could now pay his money transfer in cash rather than online, within the offices
of the BOA network. Moreover, another objective was to immediately access existing BOA
clients. In order to reinforce the customer confidence in the service, customers also received
a picture of their relatives receiving the goods sent during the transaction.
The E-commerce business has started growing very fast in Africa, driven by big players such
as JUMIA, or CDISCOUNT. AFRIMARKET surely wanted to be part of the game too, and
adapted its money transfer service by launching several E-commerce sites for different
countries since August 2015 (Jeune_Afrique, 2015). Users of the service worldwide could
now transfer some money to their relatives in different countries by choosing online from a
huge variety of products. Furthermore the company differentiates itself from existing e-
commerce platforms, given that it operates with the same partner stores it already had in
different countries. Therefore, unlike JUMIA for example, AFRIMARKET doesn’t need to
operate warehouse facilities. In order to implement its e-commerce strategy, AFRIMARKET
also introduced many changes in its business model:
 In addition to existing customers from the diaspora, the E-commerce business now
addresses a new target made up of the local African middle class in different
countries who can purchase the products online for their own. While the former can
pay online using their credit cards, the later who usually don’t have bank accounts,
can pay with their mobile phone, using Orange Money.
 The commission collected per money transfer transaction for goods is no longer paid
by the customer of the e-commerce site (money sender if from the diaspora);
instead, it is paid by the partner (supermarket or store).
 The service now include a delivery of the goods at home, which was not done before
(customers used to pick-up their goods at partner’s premises). Given that there is
almost no reliable last mile logistics service in most countries of operation,
AFRIMARKET launched its own logistics fleet, made up of trucks, motorcycles and
three wheels motorcycles.

6. AFRIMARKET – By Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA – TEM 2016 Page 6
 The customer is now given some payment facilities and can pay in 3 or 4 times.
Conclusion
AFRIMARKET is an example of a young startup which was launched with the idea of bringing
a new simple, cheaper, and more efficient way of transferring money from the African
diaspora to their relatives in the continent. The immediate success of their service in terms
of adoption by the targeted users and their ability to attract investors show the pertinence
of the service and the chosen business model.
Nevertheless, the company is constantly adapting its strategy, mainly in terms of payment
method (cash, online or mobile), going online or not, service portfolio and target market.
In 2015, the data of the company where the following (Les_echos, 2015):
Operations in four countries (Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin, Togo)
 35 employees
 30.000 customers
 250 retail and professional service partners
 2% of the remittance from the diaspora to its country of operation
 50 resellers.
Since then, the service has been launched in Cameroon and will soon be launched in Mali.
The company plans to cover as much countries as possible in Africa, and is opened to
franchise in other continents, especially in Latin America.
References
Jeune_Afrique. (2015). Retrieved from www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/262378/economie/e-commerce-
afrimarket-defie-jumia-a-abidjan/
Les_echos. (2015). Retrieved from
http://www.lesechos.fr/04/02/2015/lesechos.fr/0204126912626_afrimarket--transferer-
des-bons-d-achat-plutot-que-du-cash.htm
media.mobi. (2015). Retrieved from http://medias.mobi/ipj/37groupe2/2015/02/06/transferts-
dargent-lafrique-se-cherche-un-nouveau-modele-2/
mobilepaymentstoday.com. (2013, March). Retrieved from
http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/news/tagattitude-afrimarket-partner-on-cross-
border-payments-with-sound-based-solution/
Orange. (2014). Retrieved from www.orange.com/fr/actualites/2014/avril/Orange-Fab-France-c-est-
la-propulsion-photonique-pour-les-startups
TagPay. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://tagpay.fr/technologie-sans-contact

7. AFRIMARKET – By Robert Blaise SE-ONDOUA – TEM 2016 Page 7
Worldbank. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/outlook/external-
financial-flows-and-tax-revenues-for-africa