Native has acquired Frontline Research Group, a market intelligence company serving consumer goods businesses across more than 14 African markets. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions.
The acquisition expands Native’s operations from Latin America into Africa and adds Frontline’s independent market share data to its platform. Native plans to combine this information with its retail analytics and agentic AI capabilities to help brands connect commercial actions with measurable changes in market share.
Frontline operates market-share panels that track consumer-goods activity across traditional retail channels. Its data is used by global brands including AB InBev, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Diageo, Pepsi and Unilever.
Traditional trade consists of independent stores, neighborhood retailers and other fragmented physical outlets rather than large organized retail chains. Native estimates that approximately 80% of Africa’s $1.7 trillion in annual consumer spending moves through traditional trade channels.
These channels include more than 10 million analog stores, which can be difficult for consumer brands to monitor using conventional retail data systems. Store-level sales, inventory, product placement and market share information may be fragmented or unavailable in digital formats.
Native is developing what it describes as an operating system for offline trade. Its platform is designed to help consumer goods companies observe market activity, determine where to take commercial action and measure whether those decisions produce results.
The company’s subscription products include Lattice for field execution, Strata for distribution analytics and Overwatch for commercial optimization. Together, the tools help brands manage activity across fragmented physical retail environments.
Native also creates 3D Store Graphs, which are digital databases representing physical stores. These systems identify and map products, shelves and other fixtures so that store environments can be analyzed by software and AI agents.
Agentic AI systems can use that information to identify potential problems, recommend actions and coordinate workflows. By adding Frontline’s market share data, Native intends to provide an independent measurement layer showing whether those actions increased sales or competitive position.
Frontline’s data will become a continuing input for Native’s AI platform rather than remaining a standalone research product. The combined offering is expected to give consumer goods companies a single subscription covering field activity, distribution, commercial decision-making and market share measurement.
Following completion, Frontline will become Native’s Africa platform. Frontline CEO Sean Barnes will join Native as Chief Strategy Officer and help guide the combined company’s regional and global expansion strategy.
Native believes Frontline’s regional data cannot be easily reproduced through publicly available sources or automated data collection. The acquisition gives Native an established presence and customer relationships across several of Africa’s largest offline consumer markets.
KEY QUOTES:
“Most people would look at Frontline and see a regional research company. We see a proprietary data asset at the center of a $1.7 trillion consumer economy.”
“Frontline has built market share signals in 14 African markets that cannot be credibly scraped, inferred or bought off the shelf. When that signal connects to Native’s 3D Store Graph and agentic workflows, the equation changes: brands can see what is happening in the store, understand whether share actually moved and know what to do next. That is the operating system we are building for the offline trade.”
Matt McNabb, CEO of Native
“Frontline has built a unique regional position in the market by delivering Traditional Trade market share and other market intelligence in some of the world’s most important offline consumer markets.”
“Native’s platform gives that data a new dimension, pairing our regional depth with major advancements in machine-readable retail, agentic AI and subscription software. That is a fundamentally stronger offering than either company could deliver alone, and it opens up an exciting new chapter for our team.”
Sean Barnes, CEO of Frontline Research Group
