Rabawa, Africa’s first social and video commerce platform has raised $163,000 from Aptive Capital – a venture capital firm in the United States that is focused on supporting early-stage startups.
Rabawa’s social and video commerce solution offers resellers the opportunity to leverage social media for curating, promoting, and selling products from manufacturers and distributors to end-users.
The orgainsation gives resellers access to a virtual shop and thousands of products from trusted suppliers.
“The pace at which Rabawa has grown within one month in Nigeria, we will be able to deploy social and video commerce to other African markets,” said Olayinka Akinkunmi, chief operating officer, Rabawa in a statement.
“The company’s pace is too promising to be unnoticed,” Akinkunmi said.
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She stated that in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Rabawa hopes to empower at least a million unemployed or underemployed Africans by the year 2023 with their businesses.
Through the use of social and video commerce, heavily discounted prices, and a streamlined logistics chain, Rabawa provides the lowest prices to online shoppers on the continent.
As a result, It allows African housewives, students, youths & aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to quickly and easily launch their online businesses with zero capital investment or inventory. The platform connects resellers and business owners to top manufacturers and wholesalers across Africa, Asia, US, and UK.
Since the official rollout of a pilot model on 1st April 2021, Rabawa has caught the attention of key players in the local e-retail industry and continues to attract the best of talents to take its business model forward. Over 5,000 resellers and 1,000 suppliers are currently registered on the platform.
Paul Brandon Gilpin, managing partner of Aptive Capital, spoke excitedly about the recently secured investment.
“At Aptive, we are out to identify talents and business models that work and then we invest. We are very impressed with Rabawa’s deep knowledge of the market and their planned approach to solve the challenges of unemployment, poor product availability, high cost of logistics, access to market issues, and poverty across Africa,” he said.
“Since the fund commenced, Aptive Capital has invested in about eight startups with Rabawa being the seventh and biggest ticket size ($163,000) disbursed so far” he further said.
Aptive Capital’s portfolio investments include startups like OneKiosk, SkyfireDigital, MimiMoney, Emmnoch Farms, Statesman, and Slabdeck who have received between $10,000 and $50,000 from the funds, he noted.
Although unconfirmed, several businesses moves now hint at Aptive Capital’s interest in participating in a currently undisclosed round of OneKiosk.
With its new funding round of $163,000, Rabawa has officially positioned itself to be become a key player in Africa’s e-commerce space by utilizing social and video commerce to build a sustainable business model that impacts Africa socially and economically.
