BRCK was a Nairobi-based connectivity company founded in 2013 by Erik Hersman, Juliana Rotich, Reg Orton, and Philip Walton. The founding team represented the core of Kenya's tech ecosystem - Hersman had founded iHub Nairobi, the co-working space that became the nucleus of Silicon Savannah, while Rotich was a co-founder of Ushahidi, the crisis-mapping platform that had put Kenyan tech on the global map. BRCK was born out of their direct experience with the infrastructure challenges that plagued connectivity across Africa: unreliable power grids, inconsistent internet service, and the difficulty of staying online in environments where electricity and broadband could not be taken for granted.
The company's first product was the BRCK device - a rugged, brick-shaped piece of hardware that combined a battery backup, multiple connectivity options (3G/4G, WiFi, Ethernet), and cloud management software into a single unit designed to keep users connected through power outages and network failures. The device could run for eight hours on battery, switch automatically between available internet sources, and connect up to twenty devices simultaneously. It was designed, as Hersman described it, for "the other 5 billion" - people living in places where the Silicon Valley assumption of always-on connectivity simply did not hold. BRCK raised $3.5 million in seed funding, including a successful Kickstarter campaign, and the device attracted attention from international media and development organizations.
But building and selling hardware in African markets proved far harder than building software. Manufacturing costs were high, distribution was complicated, and the addressable market of organizations willing to pay $200-plus for a connectivity device was smaller than anticipated. Hardware margins in Africa are brutally thin - import duties, logistics costs, and price sensitivity compress what is already a difficult business model anywhere in the world. BRCK discovered what many African hardware ventures have learned: the continent's infrastructure problems create enormous demand for solutions, but the economics of delivering physical products to fragmented markets are punishing.
This realization drove BRCK's pivot to Moja, a free public WiFi platform monetized through advertising and sponsored content. Moja was deployed across Nairobi's matatu network - the privately operated minibuses that serve as the city's primary public transit system - as well as in public spaces, schools, and other high-traffic locations. Passengers could connect to free WiFi during their commute, and BRCK earned revenue from brands that advertised to those captive audiences. The pivot was substantial: BRCK went from being a hardware company selling devices to becoming a connectivity and content platform serving end users directly.
BRCK raised additional funding from investors including Novastar Ventures and TED's Audacious Project to scale the Moja platform. At its peak, the company claimed to be connecting hundreds of thousands of users monthly across Nairobi. But the advertising revenue model in a market like Kenya - where digital ad budgets were small and competition for those budgets was fierce - presented its own challenges. The company navigated multiple strategic shifts as it searched for a sustainable model.
BRCK's significance extends beyond its commercial trajectory. It represented an attempt by the architects of Kenya's tech ecosystem - the people who built the platforms and spaces that enabled Silicon Savannah - to transition from ecosystem building to product building. The challenges BRCK faced illuminated the gap between creating a vibrant startup community and building a scalable, profitable company within that community, particularly in hardware and infrastructure where capital requirements and operational complexity are orders of magnitude higher than in software.
See Also
- iHub Nairobi
- Ushahidi
- Silicon Savannah
- Internet Kenya
- TEAMS Cable Kenya
- Bandwidth Cost Collapse Kenya
Sources
- Hersman, Erik. "BRCK: Building for the Next 5 Billion." Keynote, DEMO Africa, 2013.
- Bright, Jake. "BRCK launches Moja, a free WiFi and content platform for Africa's public transit." TechCrunch, 2018.
- Nsehe, Mfonobong. "BRCK: The Brick That Connects Africa To The Internet." Forbes Africa, 2014.
- Jackson, Tom. "BRCK pivots from hardware to free WiFi as it seeks sustainable model." Disrupt Africa, 2019.