Pictured: Kwayga’s Martin Fitzgerald, CEO; Mike McGrath, COO; and Chris Kennedy, CTO.
Business & Finance highlights an up-and-coming start-up making waves in its industry. In this article we look at Kwayga, a B2B matching platform for buyers and suppliers. It focuses on democratising international trade for mid-sized businesses by putting the right buyers with the right suppliers at the right time.
What is it?
COVID-19 has focused businesses on their supply chains. Right now, businesses are seeking new solutions to help buyers diversify their suppliers, and suppliers to diversify their markets. 58% of EU SMEs don’t know where to find information on foreign markets, with 55% unaware of foreign trade opportunities. Kwayga is a B2B matching platform for buyers and suppliers. It focuses on democratising international trade for mid-sized businesses by putting the right buyers with the right suppliers at the right time. On Kwayga, buyers and suppliers can discover each other, verify and create trust, match on products/services, connect in the Deal Centre, communicate in any language in its messaging system, and trade.
As companies use the momentum of COVID and Brexit as an opportunity to redesign their supply chain with future resilience in mind, Kwayga CEO and Founder, Martin Fitzgerald said: “Significant barriers to digital supply, result in lost time and money. At Kwayga, we imagine a world where if a business is great at what it does, it should be easy for it to establish trust and securely trade with other businesses anywhere, in any language, at any time. Empowering buyers and suppliers to do this is our mission.”
Who’s behind it?
Kwayga was co-founded by Martin Fitzgerald and Mike McGrath. The idea arose as both were searching for solutions for businesses that needed to find new suppliers, this need was heightened due to Brexit and Covid-19 disruptions. The process of sourcing a new supplier was exhaustive, time consuming, and expensive. Chris Kennedy joined the team pre-launch with a strong vision for the future of Kwayga. Martin, Mike and Chris are all from Cork and the team holds strong experience and expertise in supply chain, on-line trust and identity and transactions. Mike McGrath, Co-Founder and COO of Kwayga, is a procurement and supply chain & Brexit expert, with 15 years’ experience in many sourcing and procurement roles.
Mike is also the Founder and CEO of Arvo Procurement consultants, whose clients include Lidl, GE, Fexco, Carbery, and Dairygold. Martin Fitzgerald, Co-Founder and CEO of Kwayga, brings a wealth of business lending expertise to the operation, having spent over 15 years in Business Banking AIB and KBC, with a focus on business credit validation and transaction finance, as well as cross sector business development and analysis. He also ran his own business consultancy and advised on scale up investing. Chris Kennedy, CTO of Kwayga, developed and co-founded Trustev, a leader in e-commerce fraud prevention, in 2012; which he built, scaled and successfully exited it to TransUnion in 2015.
How is it funded?
The founders funded the development of the platform to launch, and Kwayga is currently closing out a significant pre-seed round. Kwayga is an Enterprise Ireland client as a High Potential Start Up.
Future plans?
Kwayga has significant expansion plans, there will be 15 hires within the next 18 months. The initial focus is the Food Sector in Europe, with other regions and sectors being targeted thereafter.