Stock sync failure
Inventory across suppliers and channels falls out of sync, leading directly to overselling or sudden stockouts during peak demand.
The commerce backbone for Kenyan SME merchants.
Dukene is a multi-tenant commerce infrastructure platform built for Kenyan SME merchants, dropshippers, and resellers. We replace fragmented, disconnected tool stacks with one unified system.
In One Sentence
“Dukene is multi-tenant commerce infrastructure that gives Kenyan SME merchants and dropshippers a single backbone, storefront, payments, catalog sync, and WhatsApp-native checkout, instead of the fragmented, vendor-locked tool stack they use today.”
Origin & Ecosystem
Incubation
Royal Forge Cohort 1
Built by Mk as part of Cohort 1, addressing field-validated merchant bottlenecks across Kenya.
Core Infrastructure
Cloud Commerce Backbone
Powering multi-tenant isolation, real-time catalog sync, and high-speed Daraja payment APIs.
Current Status (July 2026)
Seed Round & Demo Day
SEO/GEO optimized, KSH 15M seed ask, with active multi-tenant account switching and PayHero payment migration.
The fragmented tooling environment holding sellers back
Customer discovery during Royal Forge directly validated these core bottlenecks with dropshippers and resellers, confirmed as our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
FMCG catalogue instability
Supplier catalogs (especially fast-moving consumer goods) change frequently and unpredictably, breaking downstream listings without warning.
Shipping & logistics fragmentation
No centralized way to consolidate and manage fulfillment across multiple independent suppliers and disparate delivery partners.
Vendor lock-in
Existing tools tie merchants to a single payment provider or platform, offering zero portability for store data or payment credentials.
Payment fragmentation
Merchants juggle multiple M-Pesa and PSP integrations manually, each with its own credentials, reconciliation headaches, and reliability issues.
Six unified pillars powering high-velocity retail
We unify storefronts, payments, inventory sync, and social commerce under one cohesive infrastructure.
01
Multi-Tenant Storefront & Accounts
One platform serving many independent merchants, each with isolated data, granular staff permissions, and custom store-level configurations.
02
Unified Sales Channel Adapter
Meta (Facebook/Instagram Shops) and Google Merchant Center connected through a shared architecture. Manage one catalog that syncs outward across channels.
03
WhatsApp-Native Checkout Flow
A stateful conversational checkout engine (address → phone → payment method → confirm → pay) enabling customers to complete purchases directly inside WhatsApp.
04
PayHero & Paystack Partnership
Pre-integrated with PayHero and Paystack to enable instant customer checkout on M-Pesa Till Numbers, Paybills, and Bank Accounts without holding funds.
05
Shareable Checkout Links
Hosted payment URLs (pay.dukene.co.ke/:linkId) supporting custom amounts, optional expiry dates, and real-time inventory verification for social media and DM sales.
06
DUNE Logistics Concept
Centralized consolidation points for order shipping, specifically resolving logistics fragmentation for multi-supplier shipments across Kenya.
Who Dukene is built for
Primary ICP: Dropshippers & Resellers in Kenya
Sellers who source from upstream suppliers or FMCG catalogs and sell onward via social media and WhatsApp, rather than the suppliers themselves.
Secondary: General Kenyan SME Merchants
Growing retail businesses who need robust commerce infrastructure without investing resources in building custom technology.
Strategic Investor Positioning:In investor-facing materials, sellers are framed around solving fragmentation, vendor lock-in, multi-tenant infrastructure, and WhatsApp-native checkout, with PayHero and Pesapal positioned as strategic partners rather than dependencies.
Business model & growth
Hybrid Pricing Hypothesis
We utilize a per-transaction model for initial onboarding, graduating merchants to predictable subscription pricing over time. Informal and early-stage sellers prefer usage-based pricing with lower upfront commitment, while established operations prefer flat subscriptions.
Building in Public & Community Funnels
We actively document our build journey on X (Twitter) and Reddit through the recurring “Dukene Dev Log” format. This content combines with a dedicated dropshipper training community to form a high-intent direct funnel into our beta pipeline.
Technical architecture & security posture
Engineered with Node.js, TypeScript, Prisma, and React for high concurrency and strict tenant isolation.
Data Model Highlights
- Merchant → Store Hierarchy: One Merchant owns multiple Stores; payment channels belong strictly to the Store layer.
- Account / Organization Layer: Subscription ownership lives on an Account model via a `Membership` join table, with store access scoped via `StoreAssignment`.
- Unified Sales Channels: Shared `StoreChannelConnection` and `ProductChannelSync` schema backed by an `ISalesChannelAdapter` interface (Meta, Google stubs).
- Stateful WhatsApp Flow: `WhatsAppFlowRun` (optimistic locking, currentNodeKey, JSON state) and `WhatsAppPendingExecution` backing a hardcoded 5-node checkout engine.
Security & Compliance Posture
- OAuth & Tenant Integrity: Redis-backed opaque tokens for state tamper-proofing; JWT store-context switching with server-side ownership checks.
- Hardened Vulnerability Fixes: Resolved cross-account data leakage, SSE IDOR risks, role-mapping collapses, and stale-session hybrid identity bugs.
- Reversible Schema Migrations: Two-phase rollout strategy (code deploy first, irreversible column-drop second) guaranteeing zero-downtime safety.
- CBK PSP Regulatory Compliance: Partnered with licensed PSPs (PayHero & Paystack) for direct merchant settlement without platform holdbacks.
Ready to run on a unified commerce backbone?
Get started with Dukene or explore our technical documentation and API integrations today.