THE PROBLEM: RAPIDLY URBANIZING POPULATIONS IN DEVELOPING MARKETS
Sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly urbanizing, outstripping existing infrastructure and the governments’ capacity to keep up.  Africa is expected to add another 1 billion people in the next 30 years. Current infrastructure won’t be enough.  More problematic is that conventional models of development are unlikely to reach most of them:  

• Government-managed, centralized water and energy infrastructure fail to reach the vast majority of the population
• Public utilities face high per capita costs and insufficient public financing to meet growing needs
• Inefficient supply chains in informal markets mean higher prices and limited product availability for consumers living outside of large cities

At the same time, accessing the growing consumer base in these hard-to-reach regions is an attractive business opportunity for commercial interests such as consumer product companies and distributors.

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UNTAPPED provides technical support, mobile IT tools, business model expertise, and asset financing to help local organizations deploy this model faster and at greater scale, all with less risk working with a proven team and best practices.

UNTAPPED connects businesses with underserved markets, focusing on the last-mile.  Building local infrastructure for presence and distribution, the platform aggregates small retailers and distribution agents to get essential products to consumers in informal markets more efficiently.  It makes these markets more accessible to consumer product companies by offering a direct channel to informal markets through a network of decentalized, last-mile distribution hubs that also produce clean water.   

Providing clean water, an essential commodity that every consumer needs every day, is the foundation of the platform. The distribution network we create for getting water to consumers is cost effective for distributing fast moving consumer products.  Using mobile IT for operations, geolocation, inventory, and logistics, it creates economies of scale to serve the independent retail shops and distributors in the informal market.

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The platform can help consumer product companies expand their market reach by targeting consumers that are outside of the top 5-10% of the markets in developing countries, and bring better prices, better products, and better service to a larger population.  We don't try to displace existing retailers and local businesses.  Rather, we attempt to provide a more efficient supply chain that can improve the economics for all local businesses and consumers.

UNTAPPED focuses on catalyzing business investment to address hard-to-solve problems in economic and infrastructure development. Initial and supporting investors include International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), the FMO (Dutch development bank), Leopard Capital (PE frontier markets), Danone Communities and others.

Local Infrastructure for
Clean Water & the Last Mile

reliable access and affordability

Distribution Platform for
Underserved Consumers

by addressing market inefficiencies

Technology Platform for
​Emerging Markets

replicability, scale, & sustainability