Cleeka is an online shopping marketplace for cross-border markets that enables people in neighbouring countries to access goods and services they don’t have or are expensive in their countries. Whilst enabling South African brands to reach customers in cross-border markets they do not have presence in. Cleeka started when Valentine Kembo, co-founder and CEO solved a problem for a family friend who couldn’t find good quality bed linen in Zimbabwe and asked that Valentine brings some from South Africa on his way to Zimbabwe for Christmas holidays.

Valentine realized that South Africa is very spoiled when it comes to retail with many big brands such as Apple, Woolworths, Clicks, Makro, H&M, Zara, Xiaomi, Nike, Samsung, and many others. Unlike in other African countries, they don’t have such brands and are very limited to retail choice. Most people have to travel to South Africa to buy goods they can’t access or find too expensive in their countries. So Valentine reached out to Mawuena Emmanuel, co-founder and CTO to build the platform and on 14th of February 2022, they launched their website to enable customers to order goods in their countries without having to travel to South Africa, and deliver to their addresses.

Their mission is to build Africa’s e-commerce infrastructure that will allow a retailer in Kigali, Rwanda to sell goods to a customer in Johannesburg, South Africa or a customer in Harare, Zimbabwe to buy products from a retailer in Lagos, Nigeria without any party having to travel to reach the other. To build an ecosystem that is inclusive and encourages e-commerce participation across the African continent.