Nigerian startup Proc360 is helping African wholesalers buy stock directly from China without the risk of fraud – verifying suppliers, holding payments in escrow, inspecting goods before they ship, and handling freight, customs and delivery.
Launched in February 2025 after more than six years of research into the trade corridor, Proc360 is targeting a market where traders have long paid a premium simply to feel safe.
“African wholesalers buy most of their stock from China, and there has never been a safe way to do it. So traders buy safety instead. They hand the trade to a middleman and pay a heavy markup for it,” Fara Popoola, co-founder and CEO of Proc360, told Disrupt Africa.
“That markup is the price of trust, and it is the single biggest thing holding these businesses back. Proc360 removes the need to buy safety at all. Trust is built into the trade itself, so our customers stop paying a premium for it.”
The startup’s customers save 38 per cent on average, Popoola said, money they put back into stock. The experience begins on WhatsApp through Ruby, Proc360’s artificial intelligence (AI) procurement assistant.
“Ruby speaks their language, and guides them to use a simple platform where they take their control back,” Popoola said.
The founders identified the gap after surveying 500 African traders. Of these, 67 per cent had lost money to procurement fraud or knew someone who had, while 92 per cent complained of broken logistics.
“And 71 per cent said they would rather pay a middleman a high markup than pay a supplier directly, which is a market pricing its own fear,” Popoola said.
Proc360’s biggest natural competitors are the offline agents traders currently rely on, while logistics and procurement players such as Heroshe, Aquantuo, GIG, Centi and Getitfy also operate in the space.
“They still keep an agent somewhere in the chain. We remove the need for one, backed by a supplier verification database seven years in the making,” said Popoola.
The angel-funded startup has so far enabled US$750,000 in trade across 4,900 transactions in Nigeria and Ghana. It has 2,700 businesses transacting on the platform, growing at 12 per cent month-on-month, with 81 per cent retention.
“That retention number is the one that matters. This is a market where people have been burned, so they test us with one small order, it arrives as promised, and the next one is bigger,” Popoola said.
The startup has also launched Ruby on WhatsApp and set up a partnership-powered inspection operation in China.
“The landmark we are proudest of is US$250,000 in losses prevented, money that would have gone to fraud and process errors, now sitting in our customers’ businesses instead,” said Popoola.
Proc360 makes money through four usage-based revenue streams: a fee on completed trades, transaction fees, partner commissions and foreign exchange (FX) margins. It generates around US$150 in revenue per user, per year, and has generated almost US$100,000 in revenue to date.
“We are not profitable yet, as every dollar goes back into growth,” Popoola said.
Nigeria was a deliberate starting point, with half of all finished goods sold in the country imported from China, and the China-Nigeria corridor alone accounting for 12 per cent of Africa-China trade. The next focus is depth, with Proc360 set to onboard offline traders in eight Lagos markets, including Balogun, Idumota, Alaba, Trade Fair and Computer Village.
“We will do that in person, through agents who speak their language. Then the broader West African corridor from 2028,” said Popoola.
The road has not been without challenges, chief among them trust.
“We were asking people burned before to pay a platform they had never met, and we solved that by taking small orders and never missing one,” Popoola said.
Currency volatility has been another hurdle, with naira swings capable of wiping out a margin between quote and payment.
“The wallet had to be built to hold a price,” said Popoola. “And then there is the unglamorous middle: customs, port delays, suppliers who ship the wrong thing. We chose to own those problems rather than hand them to the customer. It is expensive. It is also the entire business.”
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