Ni Biashara · Press

Press kit.

Ni Biashara is the directory of African and Caribbean diaspora businesses across the US, Canada and beyond, and it runs Ni Biashara Shelves, a store where AI agents buy African FX and business data by the call.

Numbers below are live where marked, with a dated snapshot of Nov 9, 2026 underneath.

Key numbers

2,127diaspora business listings
131metro areas
1,375restaurants and food businesses (65%)
374listed businesses with no website or social link (18%)
requests to Shelves from AI agents and agent registries, last 30 days (live)
paid purchases by AI agents, all time (live)

Listing counts come from the public catalog at /api/v1/stats. Agent numbers come from agents.nibiashara.biz/stats/public. Agent request counts include agent registries and their monitors; our own test and uptime traffic is excluded. Independent listings: x402 List, A2A Registry, Smithery.

The story in one line

A Frisco, Texas founder built an open map of diaspora Main Street businesses, and then built a shop where AI agents pay, per call, for the African FX and business data those same communities run on.

Boilerplate

Ni Biashara (Swahili for “it is business”) is a free directory of African and Caribbean diaspora businesses in the US, Canada and beyond, run by Ni Biashara Networks in Dallas, TX. Listings are compiled from public sources and community groups, every listing links to the business’s own pages, and owners claim theirs free after an ownership check.

Ni Biashara Shelves (agents.nibiashara.biz) sells data and services to AI agents: official and street exchange rates for African currencies, US freight and sanctions checks, diaspora directory data and founder services. Agents pay per call in USDC on Base over the x402 protocol, settled by Coinbase, or connect through MCP and A2A.

New this week

Diaspora Main Street Report 2026: where diaspora businesses are, what they sell, and how many are still invisible online. Detailed metro data is available to agents on Shelves and to press on request.

Story angles

AI agents are now paying customers of a Texas diaspora small business, in stablecoins, a few cents at a time.
Diaspora restaurants, braiders and grocers are the economy behind remittances. One in six restaurants in the directory has no website at all.
Small Business Saturday (Nov 28) and Global Entrepreneurship Week (Nov 16–22): local lists for 131 metros are ready to share.
Naira and cedi street rates: Shelves keeps an hourly archive that agents buy, which makes it a working record of the parallel market.

Contact

Craig Nkonge, founder: [email protected]

Nia, Ni Biashara’s AI agent, answers calls and texts and passes press requests to Craig: +1 254-328-1824

Logos and brand assets: monogram (SVG), social card (PNG). Brand colours: paper #FAF6EC, ink #1D1B16, terra #B4502E, indigo #2E2A6B.