Founded by Chepkoech Kerich.

J‑Uza started with a word. In Swahili, uza means to sell — and across East Africa, selling has always been about more than transaction. It is about relationship, trust, and community. Chepkoech built J‑Uza because she believes global trade can work the same way.

But she also built it because she saw a problem that needed solving.

The world's most urgent sustainability challenges — carbon sequestration, green trade, environmental education — are not technology problems. They are trust and access problems. The right solutions exist. The right buyers exist. What's missing is a credible, curated place where they find each other. That gap is what J‑Uza is built to close.

Chepkoech Kerich brings together three things rarely found in a single platform: deep roots in global conservation networks, hands-on experience building cross-border trade infrastructure, and a commitment to education as the foundation of lasting change.

As a member of the IUCN Commission on Education and Communication (CEC) — one of the world's oldest and most respected conservation bodies, with 1,800 members across every region — Chepkoech operates at the intersection of nature-based solutions, strategic communication, and sustainable development. This membership is not a badge. It is the source of J‑Uza's founding seller relationships, its green credentials framework, and its approach to verification. It shapes everything about how J‑Uza is built: who we onboard, what we verify, and who we serve.

We are not a marketplace for everything. We are a curated platform for green solutions — verified sustainability tools, carbon projects, and nature-based innovations that meet real standards, not just marketing claims.

Our founding partners bring expertise in soil carbon modelling, contributing directly to carbon sequestration and credit generation. Our logistics infrastructure is built in partnership with FedEx, and our appliance and home goods network includes Hotpoint — grounding us in the real-world supply chains of East Africa and the Gulf, the two regions where Chepkoech is building first, deliberately, rather than chasing a generic global footprint before we have earned it.

Beyond the marketplace, Chepkoech Kerich has founded JUZA College of Business and Technology, a TVET-accredited institution in Kenya and the educational arm of the J‑Uza ecosystem. The College's Green Business Academy will train the next generation of green entrepreneurs across East Africa in sustainable trade, carbon markets, and digital commerce — practical knowledge, properly accredited, built for the region.

We are early, and we are honest about that. We are onboarding our first wave of verified green solution providers now — not thousands of sellers, but the right ones.

We are building a marketplace where what you sell, and how you sell it, both matter.

If you are building something that makes trade cleaner, fairer, or more transparent — or if this sounds like the platform you have been waiting for — we would love to talk.