Afrikrea, one of Africa’s fastest growing eCommerce fashion outfit based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire has raised the sum of $1 million towards its expansion plans in the near future. The startup wants to deploy the fund to grow its marketplace, hire more developers and export Africa’s culture. Afrikrea which prides itself as a marketplace for African-made fashion, art, and fabrics claims it has made over $5 million in sales across more than 6,000 shops in 101 countries. Armed with the mission to build the global infrastructure for African culture, Afrikrea achieved a first major step towards it by enabling sellers from any country to ship worldwide with DHL and to support that growth; the startup raised $1 million.
The round was led by the Africa-focused VC fund, Saviu.vc. Showroomprive and Id4 Ventures also participated and according to Crunchbase, this takes the total funding of the startup to $2.1 million. The funding will allow Afrikrea to not only grow its full-fledged and mobile-first marketplace with this integrated DHL shipping solutions but also expand the team across Africa.
Afrikrea.com not only offers free shops with advanced products and transactions management tools but provides the sellers with insights and support on how to grow their business worldwide. Speaking on the development Afrikera’s co-founder and CEO, Moulaye Taboure said that it is their intention to their infrastructure to all sellers aiming to export and build sustainable companies on Africa’s biggest assets — its people and culture. The marketplace also enables efficient exchanges with the visitors or buyers, before, during and after an order through its messaging system, which it says records over 30,000 messages every month. It also collects 10% or 15% commission on sales, plus services like promotion and visibility on the website or its social network community.
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In November, it was among the ten startups that competed for the Africa Netpreneur Prize led by the Jack Ma Foundation and with a community of over 300,000 users, Taboure says Afrikrea’s aim is to roll out the best experience of Africa’s culture, designs and pieces to the world.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry