Africa's open source business marketplace — making intra-continent trade possible, one verified business at a time.
Pladify is a free, open-source marketplace of verified African businesses. We built it because intra-African trade is still one of the lowest in the world — not because the businesses aren't there, but because they can't find each other. We change that.
A large portion of our listings come from South Africa's Black Industrialist Programme (BIP) — a government-backed initiative that has invested over R4 billion into primarily black-owned manufacturers across nine provinces. We also draw from trade shows, interviews, news coverage, and the celebrated publication How We Made It in Africa — one of the continent's most respected sources of entrepreneurial stories. Every company is personally verified.
The BIP programme has funded 135+ businesses, created 6,900+ jobs, and projects R13.5 billion in total investment. Pladify exists to give those businesses a global audience.Every company is checked by a real person. We confirm they exist, they trade, and their details are accurate. No ghost companies.
The directory is open source and free to access, always. Services built on top pay the bills. Information stays free.
Starting in South Africa, building across the continent — Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and beyond.
For decades, African buyers sourced from Europe, Asia, and North America — not because better options didn't exist at home, but because there was no reliable way to find them. No verified marketplace. No trusted data. No platform built for African trade.
Pladify is that platform. Search by sector. Filter by country. Find a real supplier with real contact details — and trade.
Filter across 32+ industry sectors. Sort by country. Find exactly what you are looking for — fast.
We have checked every listing. Physical addresses, real contacts, actual products. Before it goes live, we confirm it exists.
Email and phone details on every card. Contact the business directly. No broker. No commission. No gatekeeping.
The directory costs nothing to access and nothing to be on. If you need more — sourcing help, inspections, factory setup — that is where our services come in.
Every company on Pladify has a paper trail. We do not make things up. We do not add businesses we cannot verify. Here is exactly where our data comes from.
Directly from the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic). These are businesses that have received government funding, been through government vetting, and are operating in South Africa's real economy.
Company details sourced from published interviews and articles in African business press — including How We Made It in Africa, one of the continent's most respected business publications. If a business has been interviewed about their operations, that is strong verification they are real.
Companies that exhibit at verified trade shows — Gulf Food, Africa Food Manufacturing, SAITEX, and others — are registered, paying exhibitors. Their presence at a physical event is itself a form of verification.
For companies we have traded with or visited directly through Mahabir Group's 20+ year African trading network. These listings are verified at the highest level.
We are not just a platform. Behind Pladify is the Mahabir Group — decades of experience in global trade, industrial projects, and cross-border growth. If you need hands-on help, we are here.
The directory is free. Always. The services below are where we earn our keep — and where we can genuinely move the needle for your business.We connect African manufacturers with SES Germany — 14,000 retired European industry experts who advise at near-zero cost. Factory optimisation, quality systems, export readiness, process improvement. Already a Mahabir client? We cover your placement costs entirely.
We are still building. Our directory grows through manual verification — which means we check every business before it goes live. We do this to protect buyers from fraud, and to protect the integrity of the platform.
If your business is real, active, and ready to trade — send us your details. We will do basic due diligence, confirm you exist, and add you to the database on our next update. Please be patient with us. This is a human process, not an automated one.
Listing is free. It will always be free. We reserve the right to decline businesses we cannot verify. By submitting, you confirm the information is accurate and consent to it being displayed publicly. See our Privacy Policy.
Our directory grows every week. If your company isn't here, if you're looking for a sector we haven't listed yet, or if you just need help — reach out.
Own a business that should be on Pladify? Send us details and we'll verify and add you — free.
Building directories for Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and more right now. Coming soon.
Can't find the right supplier? Our team has 20+ years of African sourcing experience. Let us help.
Every information gap is a marketplace. Pladify is one of several open directories we are building across industries.
3,400+ verified food ingredient suppliers across 184 countries. Built for US food manufacturers sourcing globally.
1,163 verified publishers across 21 countries. The open marketplace for authors looking for the right home for their manuscript.
A family-run industrial and trading conglomerate with operations across India, South Africa, UAE, and African markets since the 1990s.
Source suppliers, find partners, list your business, or just explore what African industry looks like. Start here.
[email protected]Click any sector to explore verified businesses. Use the country filter in the marketplace to narrow by location.
Built on the belief that information about African businesses should never be hidden behind a paywall.
Africa has 54 countries, over 44 million SMEs, and until recently — no single trusted, open-source source of verified business data. Every year, billions in potential trade are lost because buyers and sellers simply cannot find each other reliably. Pladify changes that.
We are starting with South Africa, where the data is strongest, and expanding country by country across the continent. Our goal is simple: make every real African business discoverable, contactable, and tradeable — for freed trade shows are registered, paying participants. Physical presence at an event is itself a form of verification.
Import and export trade records — shipping data, customs filings and international trade documentation tell us whether a business is genuinely active in cross-border trade. A company appearing in verified import or export records is trading in the real world. This is one of our strongest verification signals — and it also forms the basis of a service we offer to help African businesses reach international buyers.
Direct inspections — for businesses we have visited or traded with through Mahabir Group's 20+ year network. These are verified at the highest level.
Pladify is built and maintained by the Mahabir Group — a family-run business with 20+ years of experience in global trade, steel manufacturing, and cross-border operations across South Africa, Mozambique, Angola, India, Australia and more. We have benefited from Africa's markets. This is how we give back.
Behind Pladify is a group of businesses with decades of experience in global trade, industrial projects, and cross-border growth. If you need hands-on help — we are here.
The directory is free. Always. The services below are where we earn our keep. If you are serious about building, sourcing, or growing in Africa — talk to us.From machinery imports to factory setup, ISO certification to business exits — we have done it before.
sales@mahabir.group(WhatsApp only please — no spam)
We are on a mission to make every African business discoverable and tradeable. If that mission resonates with you — deeply, not just professionally — this is where you belong.
Pladify is Africa's first open-source, personally verified B2B business marketplace. We are backed by the Mahabir Group — a family-run conglomerate with 20+ years of experience across South Africa, India, Angola, Mozambique, Kenya and Australia.
We are not a funded startup. We are not a pitch deck. We are a working business that decided to build something useful for the continent — and we are serious about it. If you share that mindset, come build this with us.
Apply: pladify@mahabir.groupPeople Wanted
for hazardous journey. small wages, cold servers at 3am, long months of complete uncertainty, constant obstacles. safe return doubtful. honour and recognition in case of success.
Thousands responded to Shackleton's ad. Not because the conditions were good — but because the mission was worth it. We are not promising easy. We are promising meaningful. If that's enough for you, write to us.
sales@mahabir.groupThese are not jobs. These are co-ownership opportunities for people who want to build something that matters — and be rewarded accordingly.
The quality of Pladify depends entirely on the quality of our data and operations. These roles make everything work.
Pladify grows when African businesses join, claim their pages, and trade. These roles make that happen.
Pladify has a genuinely good story. We need people to tell it well — across platforms, audiences and formats.
Pladify is currently a static HTML site. We want it to become a proper platform. These roles build that future.
We believe in throwing people in the deep end — with support. Our internships are real work, not coffee runs. You will learn more in three months here than in a year somewhere else.
We are a small team with a big mission. If you cannot commit to a paid role but you believe in what we are doing — there is still a place for you. Volunteers are a real and valued part of how Pladify grows.
We are looking for volunteers who can contribute a few hours a week in areas like: company research, social media, translation (French, Swahili, Portuguese for African expansion), proofreading, or simply spreading the word about Pladify in their country or industry.
Every volunteer gets credited on the platform, included in our updates, and first consideration for any paid roles that open up.
"You have been a sales manager for 20 years. A machine importer for 30. A logistics coordinator across five African countries for a decade. A steel trader since before some of our team were born. Repetition is what makes perfection — and that repetition makes you an expert."
There is no strict definition here. If you have done something repeatedly — and done it well — for two or three decades, you have knowledge that is worth something to someone. We want to help you turn that knowledge into a consultancy.
We are building a network of verified African industry experts who can advise Pladify users — on sourcing, manufacturing, market entry, logistics, finance, and more. If you join this network, we will feature you on the platform and help connect you with businesses who need your expertise.
You could be: a retired factory manager, a freelance procurement consultant, a former banker with trade finance experience, a machine dealer, a logistics operator, a BIP programme advisor — anyone who has accumulated real, applied knowledge in their field.
Reach out and start a conversation: sales@mahabir.group
If you believe in what we are building and you think you can contribute — tell us how. We are open to people who make their own case.
sales@mahabir.groupWhether you want to cover our story, fund our mission, or just have a conversation about what we are building — we want to hear from you.
Pladify is an open-source, verified business marketplace for Africa — built by the Mahabir Group as a gift to the entrepreneurial community. The directory is free. It will always be free. The services we offer on top of it are how we keep the lights on.
The opportunity: Intra-African trade is 15% of total African trade — compared to 60%+ within Europe and 50%+ within Asia. The primary barrier is not infrastructure. It is information. Businesses cannot find each other. Pladify fixes that — with a free, open, verified marketplace that any business on the continent can use today.
To keep the lights on and the servers running, we need money. Our view: information stays free, services built on top pay the bills.
If you would like to support this — as a grant, an investment, or a conversation about what this could become — we would love to hear from you. We are not in a rush. We are building something real.
If you are a development finance institution, a VC fund with an Africa thesis, or a grant-making foundation that cares about intra-African trade infrastructure — this is a conversation worth having.
press@saurabhmaskara.comIf you would like to cover our story, feature Pladify in an article, or interview the team — we are happy to talk.
We are South Africa's first open-source, personally verified B2B business marketplace. We are backed by the Mahabir Group's 20+ years of African trade experience. We built the first version in one evening. We are expanding across 54 countries.
That is a story worth telling.
press@saurabhmaskara.comWe draw inspiration from people building similar things — better funded, further along, blazing the trail. Here are the platforms we look up to.
We are humble enough to know we are not the first to see this gap — and smart enough to learn from those who got here before us. The platforms below are doing extraordinary work in African trade, data, and business intelligence. If Pladify doesn't have what you're looking for, these might.
We also draw a lot of inspiration from our colleagues. Their success is our motivation. Their funding rounds are our proof of concept. Their users are proof that Africa is ready.
The gold standard for global agricultural trade data. If you are serious about food sourcing at scale, Tridge is where you go. They have built what we aspire to for the broader African market — verified supply chain intelligence, at scale.
tridge.com ↗Proving that technology can reach the last mile of African agriculture. Apollo uses satellite data and ML to extend credit to smallholder farmers in Kenya. Precisely the kind of thinking Africa needs more of.
apolloagriculture.com ↗The Uber of African freight. Kobo360 connects cargo owners to truck owners across Nigeria and beyond. A masterclass in solving a real African problem — not importing a solution from elsewhere.
kobo360.com ↗Building the backbone of Kenyan food distribution. Twiga connects farmers directly to retailers through a mobile-first platform. A landmark example of what B2B trade infrastructure looks like in Africa when it works.
twiga.com ↗One of the most respected sources of African entrepreneurial stories. We have drawn extensively from their interviews and profiles in building the Pladify directory. They do the journalism. We organise the data. Deeply grateful for what they have built.
howwemadeitinafrica.com ↗The most active VC fund on the continent. Their portfolio is a map of where African business is heading. Following Partech's investments is one of the best ways to understand where the real opportunities in African trade and tech are emerging.
partechpartners.com ↗The gold standard for global trade data. Panjiva tracks shipment records, customs data, and buyer-supplier relationships across 70+ countries. We use this class of data to verify that the companies in our marketplace are genuinely active in international trade — not ghost companies.
panjiva.com ↗Volza aggregates trade data from customs records across 70+ countries to show you exactly who is buying what from whom. Invaluable for identifying real African exporters and their international buyers. A tool we respect and reference.
volza.com ↗Know a marketplace or publication doing great work in African trade that should be on this list? Tell us about it.
sales@mahabir.groupSaurabh Maskara has spent 20+ years moving between continents — buying steel in India, selling to South Africa, building factories in Angola, sourcing food ingredients for the Gulf. He has lived the frustration of not finding a real, verified supplier on the continent firsthand.
His thesis: every information gap is a marketplace. Pladify is one of several open marketplaces he is building to close those gaps — free, for everyone.
"Africa doesn't have a business problem. It has an information problem. Fix the information and the business follows."