We started behind the counter, not in front of a whiteboard
TopDuka exists because the software sold to African merchants was designed for somewhere else, and it showed on every trading day.
23,000+
merchants
14
markets
112
people, mostly on the continent
Why we build this
A shopkeeper in Nairobi and a shopkeeper in Nantes do not have the same problems. One of them has a payment rail that runs on a feature phone, a landlord who wants cash, a power cut most weeks, and customers who place orders in a group chat.
Almost every commerce platform on the market was designed for the other one. So merchants here end up with a website that cannot take mobile money, a till that stops when the network does, and a spreadsheet holding the whole thing together at midnight.
We spent six weeks behind counters before we wrote a line of product code, and we still run shop visits every month. Everything in TopDuka traces back to something a merchant showed us was broken.
Four things we do not trade away
The merchant’s money is sacred
Every figure we show has to be defensible. If we are not certain, we say so rather than rounding it into confidence.
Build for a bad connection
If a feature only works on fast, reliable internet, it does not work. The offline path is the real path.
Ship what shopkeepers ask for
Our roadmap comes from shop visits, not from a competitor’s feature page. We sit behind counters regularly.
Their data, not ours
Merchants can export everything, at any time, without asking. Lock-in is not a business model we want.
Five years, one counter at a time
- 2022
A spreadsheet and a stall
Two of us spent six weeks behind counters in Nairobi and Kisumu writing down what actually broke.
- 2023
The first hundred shops
We launched the storefront builder and the till together, because separating them was the mistake everyone else had made.
- 2024
Offline, properly
The till learned to trade for a week without a network. It remains the feature merchants mention first.
- 2025
Fourteen markets
Mobile money rails across East and West Africa, multi-branch stock, and our first thousand-branch retailer.
- 2026
Selling in the chat
WhatsApp and Instagram became first-class order channels, because that is where the trade already was.
Built mostly by people who grew up shopping here
The shops we get up for
Come build it with us
We hire across the continent, pay in your local currency, and expect everyone to spend time in real shops.
Run your shop on software that knows where it is
Fourteen days free, every feature unlocked, no card required.
Free for 14 days. No card needed. Cancel any time.