Afrikrea, an Ivorian ecommerce startup, has secured $6.2 million in a pre-Series A investment and rebranded as ANKA, the SaaS platform it introduced for sellers in April last year in cooperation with DHL and Visa.
The financing was led by Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), a French venture capital firm focused on Africa. VestedWorld (US), Enigmo (Japan), Groupe Prunay (France), Rising Tide Africa (Nigeria), and SAVIU Ventures (France), which led ANKA’s seed round, are among the other investors. The startup, which is backed by LoftyInc Capital and other local investors, has raised a total of $8.1 million.
The pre-Series A round will be used to assist the company expand its SaaS mobile infrastructure and continue product development, according to the company. ANKA also wants to expand its 30-person workforce across four continents by hiring talent in technology, finance, sales, and marketing.
Why The Investors Invested
ANKA has recorded appreciable traction since its last funding. Buyers who have transacted over $35 million on the marketplace have visited the platform over 700,000 times. According to ANKA, these buyers are from 174 nations, the majority of which are located in Europe and North America. The customers, according to Taboure, are primarily from France and the United States, accounting for 90 percent of ANKA’s sales.
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Sebastien Boye, I&P’s co-CEO, said in a statement that ANKA is at the heart of his company’s strategy: brilliant and ambitious founders, strong growth, value generation, and a compelling impact thesis.
“We’re pretty happy to have some VCs in the round, but also having entrepreneurs that already did what we did. That’s something that we’re very proud about and very intentional in building the round is we focused on having the best people at the table to help us grow,” he said.
A Look At What The Startup Does
In 2016, Moulaye Taboure, Kadry Diallo, and Luc B. Perussault Diallo founded Afrikrea as a marketplace for Africa-based and -inspired fashion, clothes, accessories, arts, and crafts.
Following trends analysis, the founders discovered that merchants on the Afrikrea platform were also active on other platforms, including websites and social media. Hence it was only natural for them to create another platform, ANKA, where merchants can monitor their sales and inventory across all of these channels: Africa, social media, and websites, using an omnichannel dashboard.
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Other elements that appealed to African merchants included a configurable online storefront, payment links, and access to a variety of payment methods and logistics. Despite the marketplace’s 250 percent year-over-year growth since debut, the attraction extended to the company itself, resulting in a name change.
“The main goal behind that is to reflect our much larger purpose and mission now. And also much larger product offering as we are going to serve not only people in fashion but in every industry where anyone wants to export African products,” CEO Taboure said in an interview.
The ANKA website now includes Afrikrea as one of its features. Others include a customized online shop (like Shopify) that is linked to sellers’ social networking networks and marketplace channels (like Stripe, Gumroad, or PayPal); shipping products with DHL; and accepting payments in a variety of currencies (including a buy now, pay later option).
When vendors want to fill out their product catalogs or create payment connections, they can use ANKA for free. When sellers elect to use the program to take payments or make a transaction, they must pay €10 (US$12) every month to utilize the service. Additionally, vendors must pay €10 ($12) in advance for the platform’s shipping and website hosting services.
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ANKA boasts vendors from 47 of Africa’s 54 countries, having swallowed the Afrikrea’s commerce base. ANKA further stated that more than 80% of its vendors are women, and that since joining the ANKA community, their revenue has increased by 50% on average.
ANKA ecommerce ANKA ecommerce
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer