Back in February 2021 we touted $9.9 million in aggregate annual revenues from the bizi for calendar year 2020, up from nearly $7 million in 2019. Two years later, the aggregate annual revenues have more than doubled to $24 million.
This is keeping up with the fast paced growth of past years. Many of the companies are doubling their annual revenues every 12 to 18 months.
East Africa Foods (recently renamed) has been doing that for years, and is the first to surpass $10 million. Agro Supply was earning just $98,000 in 2019, growing past $2 million in 2020. TRUK Rwanda didn’t even exist in 2019, and also surpassed $2 million in revenues in 2020. Swahili Honey‘s revenue were inches away from that $2 million milestone too. And a handful more bizi earned more than $1 million too, up from just East Africa Foods back in mid-2020 when Africa Eats launched.
What will happen in 2023? As these companies get larger, we expect their rate of doubling to slow down, as it is challenging enough to grow from $100,000 to $200,000 in 12-18 months, or from $400,000 to $800,000. It’s quite a larger challenge to grow from $1 million to $2 million in a year, then $2 million to $4 million. But that said, the aggregate of the bizi predictions are well above $40 million for the year 2023, and we’ll be more than satisfied if they keep up the historic growth rate that hovers around 60%, which would end the year at $38 million.
