SokoText is a smart solution with a big idea: To make food affordable for everyone. We use the power of text messaging to aggregate demand for food and unlock wholesale prices for small entrepreneurs in urban slums.
CEO in Kenya
Suraj comes from an entrepreneurial Kenyan-Indian family. He brings on board deep local knowledge and hands-on experience of starting and managing businesses in our first country of operations.
Co-founder
Verena’s background is in project management, business development and research in the non-profit sector. She is passionate about market-based solutions to social and environmental challenges.
Co-founder
Jonah is a serial social entrepreneur experienced in turning powerful ideas into profitable organisations. He previously co-founded Operation Groundswell.
Co-founder
Sofia oversees SokoText’s marketing strategy and product manages our technology products. She has a background in technology startups and the microfinance and social enterprise sectors.
Co-founder
Carolina is a food security specialist who has been working in the fields of policy research, journalism and marketing. She is passionate about social impact and different ways of measuring it.
SokoText represents a fantastic low-tech approach that could really scale for decreasing the inefficiencies in urban slum markets
SokoText uses the power of mobile phones to aggregate demand in the slums and unlock wholesale prices for micro-entrepreneurs.
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Small-scale vegetable sellers and kiosk owners are the gatekeepers and key players of food accessibility in urban slums. Yet a lack of capital means that they cannot afford to buy in bulk and pay to travel long distances to markets every day to buy just enough stock that will help them get by. SokoText leverages the widespread and increasing use of mobile phones in slums to solve these problems. We help micro-entrepreneurs become game-changers. With SokoText, they can boost their business while becoming the key agents that empower people living in the slums to eat better and healthier.
Joining SokoText has really changed my business: my customers are happy because they now get more for their money.
We have been running a successful pilot in Mathare Valley, Nairobi since the summer 2013.
Bringing Fresh, Affordable Produce to Mathare
Our Manager Isaac
Our first pilot had 27 alpha users
In November 2013 we started Phase 2
Families save 20% on food
which equates to one exta meal a day
Our local team is ready to go!
We're partnering with Community Transformers
© 2013 SokoText