When most startups say “real-time insights,” they’re usually talking about dashboards that lag behind a news cycle and still use third-party cookies like it’s 2012. But Rwazi? They didn’t just tear the page, they are building a book.
Started in 2021 by Joseph Rutakangwa and Eric Sewankambo, Rwazi came out of a frustration we’ve all seen but few have the guts to tackle: broken, stale, and biased data pipelines, especially in emerging markets. You can’t scale with blind spots. So instead of waiting for Silicon Valley to get a clue, they went straight to the source, people. Real consumers, real markets, voluntarily submitting zero-party data in real time. Not inferred, not bought, earned.
That origin story didn’t just resonate. It scaled. Rwazi now fields insights across 190 countries, with over 50,000 active mappers feeding a machine that moves faster than your product roadmap. That’s not research, that’s a living, breathing intelligence layer. Their AI decision copilot, Sena, doesn’t just regurgitate trends, it simulates outcomes, contextualizes shifts, and guides enterprise teams like it’s been running P&L meetings since birth.
Now, with a fresh $12M Series A led by Bonfire Ventures, alongside returning believers Newfund Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Santa Barbara Ventures, Rwazi’s about to pour gasoline on an already roaring engine. This isn’t about chasing TAM. This is about commanding it. The consumer insights market is on track to pass $655B by 2029, and the incumbents? They’re still peddling surveys and panels while Rwazi’s building the OS for enterprise decision-making.
And the traction’s no fluke. Coca-Cola, Visa, Nestlé, Pampers, they’re not testing Rwazi, they’re integrating it. If you’re in consumer goods, financial services, healthcare, or telecom, and you’re still leaning on outdated intel to make billion-dollar bets, you’re already behind.
Joseph Rutakangwa and Eric Sewankambo didn’t just create another insights platform, they’re building a new feedback loop for the planet. A system that thinks with you, not after you. The fact that they bootstrapped this idea into a global data engine speaks louder than any deck ever could. Add in Techstars LA cred, industry awards, and cloud-native infrastructure that scales like a beast, and you’ve got a team that’s not just building for today, they’re defining the future of enterprise cognition.
The next wave of winners won’t guess better. They’ll know faster. That’s what Rwazi’s selling. And the smartest money in the room just doubled down.
