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A leading e-commerce company in Ivory Coast has closed an oversubscribed round to expand its mobile product suite across different retail channels.
Afrikrea, the e-commerce platform for “all things made of Africa”, on 11 January 2022, has announced in Abidjan, Côte D’Ivoire, the successful completion of a US$6.2M pre-Series A round led by Investisseurs & Partenaires an impact investment group dedicated to SMEs based in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the Indian Ocean as they rebrand to ‘ANKA’, an all-in-one solution for selling anywhere, shipping globally and receiving payments quickly.
In order to better support its sellers and the rapid scaling of the business, ANKA was launched in 2021 as the first of its kind all-in-one SaaS solution to provide a seamless e-commerce service for African micro-retailers.
ANKA, which means “Ours” in Bambara and Djoula, aims to build an infrastructure dedicated to powering e-commerce for its over 13,000 sellers exporting literally ‘all things made of Africa’ to a global audience.
The new investment includes participation from Alibaba’s Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai, BESTSELLER Foundation, VestedWorld, Enigmo, Groupe Prunay, and Rising Tide Africa. They join existing investors SAVIU Ventures (who is also participating in the round), Lofty Inc, Kepple Africa, Consonance, id4 Ventures, and Thierry Petit.
The extra capital takes the company’s total investment since its inception in 2016 to US$8.1 million as the new funds will be used to expand the mobile infrastructure of ANKA’s e-commerce software as a service (SaaS), providing its sellers’ easy global access, as well as to invest in product development. The funding will also be used to hire additional remote developers and increase talent acquisition across the company’s product, sales, and finance teams.
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The software has grown its retailer base to include sellers from 47 out of 54 African countries and completed over $35 million in transactions in 174 countries worldwide and more than 80 percent are women who have grown their revenue by 50 percent on average since joining the ANKA community.
The platform currently records over 700,000 visits a month with the majority of customers located in Europe and North America.
Now operating as one of several channels under the ANKA umbrella, Afrikrea.com retailers will still have access to the ANKA platform and its expanded services, content, and support to drive business growth.
ANKA operates as an inclusive SaaS which would allow sellers to sell via a customized online storefront like Shopify, linked to sellers’ social media platforms and marketplace channels such as Stripe, Gumroad, or PayPal.
It will also allow sellers to Ship globally with verified best rates via leading logistics partner DHL, receive payments internationally in all currencies, including a free Buy Now Pay Later option, and the ability to withdraw funds through local African payment methods like mobile money
Speaking on the fundraise and rebrand, Moulaye Taboure, CEO and Co-Founder of ANKA spoke at the event saying, “We have recorded unprecedented growth since the launch of ANKA last year; since then our subscribers tripled and volume on the newest services has multiplied by 8 just over the last 6 months. As our vision and clients’ needs had outgrown the singular purpose of the Afrikrea marketplace, operating under ANKA provides a more holistic description of our mission as a pan-African company. Through the ANKA platform, which integrates every aspect of business, we now serve sellers, not just in fashion, but in what will be a variety of sectors in over 80% of the African countries.” Taboure said.
“ Instead of trying to get Africans to buy more or spend faster, ANKA will be one the few companies that actually help them earn, own and create, at a global scale. Growth, velocity, volume, and ‘financial inclusion’ are all empty words without value creation, distribution, and worldwide scale. Most of Africa’s development problems will not be solved by just better efficiencies in moving cash, we need to produce, sell and build for the world to matter.” he added.
Sebastien Boye, Co-CEO of Investisseurs & Partenaires said, “ We are delighted to have led ANKA’s funding round. This company is at the heart of IPAE2’s investment strategy: a talented and ambitious African founders team, significant growth and value creation potential, and a compelling impact thesis. Indeed, ANKA aims to give micro-entrepreneurs in Africa all the tools to access the potentialities of the global e-commerce market. The company has the potential to create a full entrepreneurial ecosystem, around its comprehensive platform. We are very impressed with the growth of ANKA since it launched and are confident in their ability to drive digital and financial inclusion for African entrepreneurs.”
ANKA is expanding its fully remote team of 30 on 4 continents and recruiting for a number of roles including product management, sales, finance, and remote developers.
