Our Story
Software built forAfrican businesses.
Kenya's hair and beauty industry grew from KSh 26 billion in 2020 to over KSh 100 billion in 2024 — a 400% expansion in four years. It employs hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, most of them young, most of them informal. Yet the software sector continues to treat it as an afterthought. CutzIQ exists to change that.
Kenya beauty industry value, 2024
Source: Beauty Kenya Industry Report
USD market size, growing at 6.8% annually
Source: Statista, 2024
Global salon services spend, 2024
Source: Fortune Business Insights
Of Kenya's workforce in the informal sector
Source: KNBS Economic Survey 2025
The hair and beauty industry is one of Kenya's largest informal employers — yet it remains dramatically underserved by software built for its specific reality.
Qewna Software
One company.Many intelligent platforms.
Qewna Software builds a suite of IQ-branded management platforms for African businesses — starting with the hair and beauty industry. Each product is built from the ground up for its specific market, not adapted from a template designed somewhere else.
We have been immersed in Kenya's hair and beauty industry since 2018. We understand that the primary payment rail is M-Pesa, not card. That client communication happens on WhatsApp. That staff commission disputes are one of the most common pain points for owners — and that most software still can't solve it cleanly. That walk-in traffic is unpredictable and managing the queue manually creates tension every single busy day.
Solutions have existed in Kenya — local and foreign. The gap has never been availability. The gap has been fit: software that integrates the payment methods your clients actually use, handles the commission structures your staff expect, and gives you the analytics to know whether today's revenue is on pace — without a spreadsheet.
More products in development.
How we build.
Three principles behind every product.
Context-first
We have spent years in the field — in barbershops in Nairobi, salons in Mombasa, spas in Nakuru. We understand that the first question is never 'what features should we build?' It is: how does a shop owner actually close their books at the end of the day? What does a commission disagreement actually look like? What does the Friday afternoon walk-in rush actually feel like?
Invisible intelligence
AI in CutzIQ does not ask you to learn anything new. It watches your revenue history and tells you what today's target should be. It tracks your pace in real time so you know by 2pm whether you are on course — without opening a spreadsheet or doing a single calculation yourself.
Platform thinking
CutzIQ is the first product in the Qewna Software suite. Every platform we build — SqoolIQ for schools, KinusIQ for fitness, AMLiq for financial compliance — shares the same infrastructure, payment rails, and design language. The knowledge we build in hair and beauty transfers across every vertical we enter.
Ready to run a smarter business?
Part of the Qewna Software suite · Built in Nairobi, Kenya