ConsumatechKiungo: a system that brings value closer to where it starts.
Kiungo, Swahili for "link", is the system we're pioneering to build and strengthen links within and between communities, bringing value closer to where it starts.
Value ends up in the wrong place
In most consumer and small-business value chains, the hardest work happens at the bottom, but the value builds up at the top. By the time a product reaches a community, everyone above it has added a margin.
Why buy tomatoes from a distant retailer when they grow down the road?
Kiungo turns that around. It starts with what already exists: the shops and agents that already reach almost everyone.
How Kiungo works
- Link
Shops, community marketers and devices become points of presence: fixed, mobile and digital.
- Listen
Each point is where demand comes in: what a community wants and needs. Data is aggregated and anonymised, and never sold as individual records.
- Leverage
Combined demand becomes buying power. With it, we negotiate better prices, source locally where we can, and rebuild value chains from the bottom up.
Who the system links
- Shops
The fixed points. Every kasiPOS counter is a place to buy, pay, collect and order.
- People
The mobile points. Community marketers, each linked to a local shop for payment and collection.
- Devices
The digital points. Phones where demand comes in and products and services go out.
- Businesses and partners
Small businesses, brands, suppliers, telcos and retailers that sell through the system and serve it.
kasiPOS
How a shop becomes a point in the Kiungo system.
The trade operating system for Africa's general trade. Every shop counter, connected to its value chain.
The store app is open source; the network is proprietary. kasiPOS is not a fintech and not a logistics company: payment partners settle the money and delivery partners move the goods. Live in South Africa and the DRC.
Partner with kasiPOS ↗ (opens kasipos.com)- Earn
- Airtime, data, digital products and parcel pickup for commission, with only a phone.
- Run
- Till, catalogue, stock, customer credit and receipts, working offline.
- Grow
- Group buys, brand campaigns and supplier ordering.
One sale, value in several places
A customer buys at a kasiPOS counter.
The sale feeds the shop's reorder, and group buys and pooled supplier orders with nearby shops.
If a brand campaign is running, the till verifies it.
Every sale adds to a trading history that verifies the shop.
Kasipages
How a new business starts in the Kiungo system.
Start your own business, right here in your community.
Pick a franchise
The first is AI services: CVs, flyers, logos and business pages.
Learn it in the academy
Lessons told as stories, on your phone.
Get customers
A Kasipages store near you brings the customers and takes the payment.
FreshEyes
How the system's demand data becomes intelligence.
A new perspective on data.
FreshEyes turns the data from our platforms into intelligence about Africa's local contexts, so we can build better solutions and show partners, clients and investors where value can be created.
Data is aggregated and anonymised, and never sold as individual records.
Built with partners, market by market
We don't replicate Consumatech in every market; local partners build Kiungo where they are. Live in South Africa and the DRC; conversations in Nigeria and East Africa.
Questions
Kiungo is the system Consumatech is pioneering to build and strengthen the links within communities and between them. Shops, people and devices become points where demand comes in and products and services go out. Combined, that demand becomes buying power: value moves closer to where it starts, and value chains are rebuilt from the bottom up.
No. kasiPOS is how a shop joins. Kiungo is the whole system: shops, people, devices and partners, linked within communities and between them.
It combines a community's demand into buying power, so better prices and more of the value stay closer to the community.
Data is aggregated and anonymised, and never sold as individual records.
Shops join through kasiPOS, new businesses through Kasipages, and partners through the Partner page.
Live in South Africa and the DRC; conversations in Nigeria and East Africa.