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Lock & Mercer

01 / Studio

  • Nairobi, Kenya
  • Independent
  • Build & operate

Software that has to hold.We build it, then we carry it.

Lock & Mercer is a venture studio in Nairobi. We build products for other people, and we build our own, in markets where the hard part is not the build. It is being believed.

LiveSpaceYako

The SpaceYako property platform: listings beside a map of Kenya, each card showing price, location and verification state.

Agents pay to list. Seekers never pay. No money moves between users.

02Studio

Most of this is agency work.

Worth being accurate about: most weeks, Lock & Mercer is doing work for other people. This year that has meant rebuilding an independent business publication, a radio station in Western Kenya, and the country’s consumer federation. Those were briefs, with budgets and deadlines, from clients. Calling that something other than agency work is selling you a word.

The difference is narrower than a positioning line would like it to be, and it is this. We also build our own products, and then we keep them. SpaceYako is ours. We answer its support email, we chase the payment that failed at the gateway, and we take down the listing that turns out to be a scam. Living inside a product changes what we build into somebody else’s, because we already know which decisions turn into someone’s Saturday.

We build for other people. We also build our own, and those we keep.

How the studio works

03Ventures

SpaceYako

Live

A property platform for Kenya, built around a single question: can you believe the listing?

We own it and we run it. The support inbox is ours, the takedowns are ours, and the decision about what a verification badge is allowed to imply is made by the people who answer for it.

05Services

Build, carry, prove.

06Contact

Tell us what’s load-bearing.

Describe the part that breaks if it isn’t right. If it isn’t for us, you’ll get a straight no and a reason.

hello@lockandmercer.com

What to include