In 2025, the average consumer across Africa felt the impact of inflation daily. Food prices soared in Kenya, medicine costs swung with Nigeria’s exchange rate, and housing in Addis Ababa became a luxury reserved for a few. Each of these price hikes is the result of a “broken link” in the supply chain.
While the large infrastructure companies (covered in [Part 1]) are creating the underlying systems, a new group of startups is tackling these exact challenges directly in the field. They are tackling what investors call “Real World Assets” (RWA).
For Part 2 of our Watchlist, we’ve chosen four companies focused on digitising the physical supply chains of Food, Health, and Shelter. These companies are not only raising funds but are also generating profits, acquiring competitors, and constructing factories. Here are the four startups addressing the broken links.
OmniRetail (Nigeria): Dismantling the Invisible Supply Chain
When you step into a small retail shop in Lagos, the availability of goods masks a broken system. The struggle isn’t finding the products, but the inefficient way they reach the shelf. Behind every packet of spaghetti is a complex web of middlemen, each adding a margin that drives up the final price.
OmniRetail is dismantling this model. By streamlining the B2B supply chain, they connect manufacturers directly to over 150,000 small retailers, cutting out the unnecessary layers.
Unlike many B2B e-commerce players who struggled with high burn rates this year, OmniRetail achieved Net Profitability in 2024. This efficiency allowed them not just to survive, but to buy the competition. In October, they made a major move by acquiring Traction Apps, a merchant payment processor. This closes the loop: they now control the inventory and the payment terminal. With a fresh $20M Series A war chest led by Norfund, they have the capital to dominate West Africa without burning cash.
Going into 2026, , the challenge will not be expansion, but keeping these small businesses afloat. OmniRetail’s proprietary data is its greatest asset, allowing it to issue inventory credit to un-scored shopkeepers—effectively turning the company into the most important bank branch for the informal economy.
Remedial Health (Nigeria): Safeguarding the Pharmacy’s Net
The Nigerian pharmaceutical market faces two major problems: Price Volatility and Counterfeits. When supply chains fail, fake drugs can easily enter the market, causing real drug prices to rise sharply. Remedial Health is addressing this issue by acting as a distributor and creating a digital system that connects over 14,000 healthcare providers directly to genuine supplies.
Their latest strategic move changes everything: Private Label Manufacturing. Instead of simply distributing other companies’ drugs, Remedial has started manufacturing its own commoditised medicines (like anti-malarials). This vertical integration serves two critical purposes: it protects their margins from inflation and guarantees authenticity via their Mobile Authentication Service (MAS). (This achievement also earned them recognition by the Financial Times as one of Africa’s Fastest-Growing HealthTech companies in 2025.)
The 2026 Watch: As global pharmaceutical giants scale back their direct operations in Nigeria, Remedial is perfectly positioned to fill the void. Watch for them to become the “trusted generic” standard for the continent, providing a reliable, affordable, and consistently stocked alternative to the retreating multinationals.
Koolboks (Nigeria/France): Plugging the Food Drain
Up to one-third of all food produced in Africa is wasted—it doesn’t get eaten; it rots—all due to the devastating lack of cold storage. Koolboks attacks this massive problem with solar-powered refrigeration as a service. They allow off-grid market women to keep fish and vegetables fresh for days, paying for the fridge in small daily installments (Pay-As-You-Go).
This isn’t a hardware project; but the development of a critical, scalable system. After securing an $11 Million Series A in September (backed by KawiSafi Ventures and All On), Koolboks announced plans for a local assembly plant in Nigeria. By assembling locally, they slash import duties and shipping costs by ~20%. This level of operational efficiency is essential to making the cold chain affordable in a high-inflation environment.
Food security will be the defining theme of 2026. The true value proposition of these startups is time: more time on the shelf equals less risk for the farmer and a better price point for the end-user.
Ridelink (Uganda): Streamlining the Logistics of Shelter
Housing is expensive in East Africa for reasons that have nothing to do with land; but logistics. Moving essential materials like cement, steel, and timber is currently a nightmare of opaque pricing and unreliable transporters. Ridelink is the “Air Traffic Control” for these heavy goods, using an AI-driven platform to match businesses with a network of trusted, independent haulers.
This success is a masterclass in resilience. For the last two years, the African logistics sector has been a graveyard for giants, with asset-heavy players like Sendy stumbling under high debt. While others went quiet, Ridelink closed a $1.1M Pre-Seed round in November 2025 (backed by Digital Africa’s Fuzé fund) to aggressively capture the East African corridor.
By remaining asset-light – matching 6,000+ SMEs with trucks they don’t have to own or maintain – they avoid the debt traps that killed their predecessors. Their AI doesn’t just find trucks; it predicts pricing and optimises routes. In the construction sector, where margins are razor-thin, Ridelink’s efficiency is often the only thing keeping a project from stalling.
Ultimately, the housing crisis cannot be solved without addressing the logistics crisis. As Ridelink expands across the East African Community (EAC) in early 2026, they are proving that the future of the sector isn’t about owning trucks—it’s about owning the data.
The Takeaway for Part 2
While many global tech discussions focus on the “Metaverse” or the latest “AI Chatbot,” the real winners in Africa by 2026 will be those addressing basic, real-world problems. These are not just software companies; they are building a stronger and more resilient continent.
- OmniRetail is dismantling the middleman tax to keep neighbourhood shops solvent.
- Koolboks is plugging the food drain to ensure no harvest goes to waste.
- Remedial Health is safeguarding the pharmacy shelves against fakes and inflation.
- Ridelink is streamlining the logistics of shelter to make housing a reality.
In a year of economic challenges, these startups are working hard to combat inflation. They are focusing on fixing issues that already exist, rather than just trying to change things quickly.
But what happens when we look beyond the essentials?
In the last part of our series (Part 3), we explore the risky but potentially rewarding investments in AI-driven Wealth Management and Cross-Border Finance. These are the bold bets that could either fail dramatically or change the way wealth is generated and protected in Africa.
If you missed the start of this series, [read Part 1 here]. In it, we examined the vital infrastructure, like payment systems and energy grids, that made the startups in Part 2 possible.
