A leading Ghanaian startup called Swiftway Shippers, a logistics and freight forwarding platform is simplifying import, export, and cross-border trade for African businesses. The platform connects businesses to freight forwarders, customs clearance agents, transporters, warehouses, suppliers, and payment providers on a single platform, offering automated quotations, live cargo tracking, and cargo aggregation for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. Founded by Abubakar Sadick Fuseini after a seven-year journey that began in traditional stationery logistics, Swiftway launched its automated platform in June 2025 and is currently one of the fastest-growing startups in Africa. The startup is also completing legal and technical integration to become a fulfilment partner for the e-commerce client Temu.
TechPolyp spoke with Abubakar Sadick Fuseini, CEO and Co-founder of Swiftway Shippers, about the platform’s founding story, how it digitises the freight forwarding industry, its operational workflow, differentiators from traditional freight forwarders, cross-border regulatory adaptation, global cargo tracking infrastructure, cargo aggregation for MSMEs, overcoming resistance in traditional markets, his vision for intra-African trade and AfCFTA collaboration, and his advice for early-stage African founders.
How Swiftway Was Born From a Personal Experience With Delivery Failures
The idea for Swiftway did not emerge from a boardroom. It emerged from a delivery failure. Approximately seven years before the interview, Fuseini was working as a 19-year-old manager at a stationery firm. One day, a client travelling to purchase printing supplies suffered an accident. The contract was cancelled because the delivery was delayed. That incident stayed with Fuseini. He began to notice that delivery challenges were widespread among clients.
The problem was not demand. It was coordination. Businesses needed reliable delivery, but no system existed to provide it. According to Fuseini, he consulted the business owner and used his personal savings to purchase a motorbike and hire a rider exclusively for customer deliveries. It was a small intervention, but it revealed a larger opportunity.
Expansion, COVID-19, and School Enrollment
The operation expanded to three additional cities in Ghana. Then 2020 COVID-19 pandemic happened, and operations closed down. Fuseini then enrolled at university to study procurement and supply chain management. There, he encountered a different version of the same problem. University peers struggled to purchase items from platforms like Alibaba, and Amazon because of payment and shipping barriers.
According to Fuseini, he began acting as a procurement agent while in school. What started informally scaled into an external office with a team of three, generating over $100,000 in revenue within two years, he claimed. But managing over 1,000 daily orders via WhatsApp caused frequent system crashes and operational inefficiencies. The business was growing faster than its infrastructure. In response, Fuseini dropped out in level 300 to lead his team in building an automated logistics platform in 2023. The platform was completed in early 2024.
Bootstrapping and Launch of the Swiftway Platform
The path to launch was not easy. Fuseini spent eight months fundraising and spoke with over 280 investors. Most deemed the startup too early-stage or requested specific metrics that Swiftway did not yet have. Rather than wait, Fuseini and his team decided to bootstrap. Persistent customer demand made the decision easier. The platform officially launched on June 1, 2025. It achieved over 540 users and $120,000 in revenue with a lean full-time team of three and four part-time or contract staff. Swiftway is also completing legal and technical integration to become a fulfilment partner for Temu.
End-to-End Operational Workflow of Swiftway
Fuseini explains that Swiftway operates similarly to Uber. It connects businesses to freight forwarders, customs clearance agents, transporters, warehouses, suppliers, and payment providers on a single platform. Clients request quotations for imports, exports, or customs clearance by submitting origin, destination, product type, weight, and volume details. They receive automated cost and timeline quotes.
Once confirmed, the client’s booking is finalised. Swiftway’s backend coordinates airlines, shipping lines, and brokers while dispatching notifications via email, WhatsApp chatbot, and SMS. Users can also access live vessel and flight tracking directly through their dashboard. The goal is to replace fragmented, manual processes with a single, transparent workflow.
Key Differentiators From Traditional Freight Forwarders
Fuseini contrasts Swiftway with traditional forwarders by highlighting multi-airline routing options, including Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, and Turkish Airlines. The platform offers real-time flight and vessel tracking. It also provides analytical dashboards that give businesses insights into order seasonality, taxes, order sizes, and top destination cities.
Additionally, Swiftway has integrated with financial technology providers such as Payers to enable rapid supplier payments and cargo pre-financing or escrow services. This replaces multi-day bank transfers with faster, more reliable transactions.
Cross-Border Regulatory Adaptation and Local Expertise
Addressing expansion into markets like Nigeria and wider West Africa, Fuseini explains that regulatory requirements vary by country. Swiftway standardises the technological process across borders while employing local experts who understand specific regional tax, tracking, and documentation regulations. This hybrid model allows the platform to maintain consistency while respecting local realities.
Global Live Cargo Tracking Infrastructure
Fuseini details how Swiftway tracks cargo across major global hubs like China, the UK, and the US. The platform uses APIs from vessel-tracking companies and airlines. For sea freight, container vessels are tracked globally. For air cargo movements, such as Ethiopian Airlines flights routing from Guangzhou to Addis Ababa, Nigeria, and Ghana, Swiftway monitors through direct airline API integrations. This data is replicated on the client portal, giving businesses visibility into their shipments at every stage.
Cargo Aggregation and Pricing Structure for MSMEs
To provide affordable rates for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, which represent 90% of the African economy according to Africa 24 TV, Fuseini describes a cargo aggregation model. Instead of forcing small businesses shipping low volumes—such as 1 kilogram of shea butter—to pay airline minimum weight requirements of 10 kilograms, Swiftway aggregates shipments from multiple clients. This secures volume-based airline discounts and eliminates excess weight costs. The model makes international shipping accessible to businesses that would otherwise be priced out.
Overcoming Operational Resistance in Traditional Markets
Fuseini identifies the toughest operational challenge as digitising a fully manual offline market that has operated for over 100 years. Convincing traditional partners and clients accustomed to manual paperwork to adopt a backend portal required patient dialogue and clear communication. Fuseini emphasised scalability—handling 50 to 10,000 daily orders—automated live tracking, and data analytics.
The resistance was not about technology alone. It was about trust, habit, and a fear of losing control. Swiftway addressed it by demonstrating tangible operational benefits.
Intra-African Trade Vision and AfCFTA Collaboration
Fuseini notes that intra-African trade currently accounts for only 10% of Swiftway’s revenue. Persistent regulatory and customs barriers remain despite cross-border demand for goods like Ghanaian shea butter and Nigerian hair products. To tackle this, Swifway collaborates with the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), he claims. Fuseini added that he eventually graduated from an executive certificate program in import and export.
Plans include rolling out training for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises and establishing airline and shipping line packages to facilitate seamless intra-African trade.
Founder Advice and Resilience in the African Landscape
Concluding the interview, Fuseini advised early-stage founders to start with the limited resources available rather than waiting for perfection. He emphasised that personal resilience and a clear internal motivation are essential when facing scepticism and rejections from investors. Founders must make personal sacrifices, such as working without a salary, and maintain unwavering commitment to delivering excellent client service regardless of order size. TechPolyp expressed appreciation for the insights.
Read Also: How truQ Is Digitising Heavy Cargo and Commercial Logistics in Nigeria
An Analysis of Africa’s Logistics and Cross-Border Trade Market
The market for logistics and cross-border trade in Africa is vast and fragmented. Millions of MSMEs drive the continent’s economy, yet many remain locked out of international shipping because of high minimum weights, complex customs procedures, and unreliable payment systems. Intra-African trade remains low, with regulatory and customs barriers preventing goods from moving as freely as demand suggests.
The opportunity is not just to move goods. It is to build infrastructure that makes trade accessible, transparent, and affordable. Platforms like Swiftway are attempting to do this by aggregating demand, digitising workflows, and integrating financial services.
The challenge is that these markets require a different approach. Infrastructure is less developed, trust is built slowly, and traditional intermediaries often resist change. But the rewards are substantial: lower costs for MSMEs, greater visibility for businesses, and a more connected African market.
Fuseini believes that the infrastructure for inclusive cross-border trade in Africa can be built—and that the technology exists to make it efficient, trustworthy, and compatible with the informal networks that millions of businesses already rely on. The suppliers, freight forwarders, and buyers exist. What Swiftway is supplying is the digital infrastructure—transparent, efficient, and deeply aligned with local realities—that turns fragmented logistics into a unified network for African trade.
About Swiftway
Swiftway Shippers is a Ghanaian tech-enabled logistics and freight forwarding platform developing integrated infrastructure for African cross-border trade. The platform connects businesses to freight forwarders, customs clearance agents, transporters, warehouses, suppliers, and payment providers, offering automated quotations, live cargo tracking, cargo aggregation, and financial services. Swiftway launched its automated platform on June 1, 2025. Abubakar Fusieni, the startup’s co-founder and CEO told TechPolyp that the startup is completing legal and technical integration to become a fulfilment partner for Temu and is collaborating with AfCFTA to facilitate intra-African trade.
About Abubakar Sadick Fuseini
Abubakar Sadick Fuseini is the CEO and Co-founder of Swiftway Shippers. Fuseini leads the company’s strategy, operations, and expansion into new markets. He studied procurement and supply chain management at university and dropped out in level 300 to build Swiftway’s automated logistics platform. Fuseini is a graduate of an executive certificate program in import and export and is a committed advocate for intra-African trade, MSME empowerment, and founder resilience.
