JABU, a Namibian business-to-business e-commerce startup, has announced a N$236.4 million (U$15 million) Series A investment headed by Tiger Global.
According to the startup, the round, which concluded somewhere in March, is Tiger Global’s second investment in the B2B e-commerce industry after backing Wasoko in its massive Series B round, and comes after the company raised N$50.6 million (U$3.2 million) last year.
Box Group, Knollwood, and D Global Ventures are among the other investors. Some of its seed round sponsors, including Afore Capital, Oldslip, and FJ Labs, have also increased their investment.
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“This will allow us to continue developing, bringing our total capital and equity investment as a Namibian tech firm to more than US$18 million,” Jabu CEO David Akinin told participants at a Namibian House event held on Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He also revealed that the company was working with the Bank of Namibia and the Bank of Zambia to establish a payment wallet, JWallet, to address the company’s present payment and cash concerns.
The solution will be released as a standalone product, allowing Southern African businesses to use existing physical flows to provide cash withdrawal and deposit services to their clients.
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Akinin established JABU in the mid-2020s to address Namibia’s inefficient and nearly non-existent supply chain and distribution.
Its platform connects over 6,000 stores to local and multinational suppliers like Namibia Breweries Limited, Bokomo, Coca-Cola, and Namib Mills, as well as digitizing orders, payments, and logistics.
The Namibian startup has a vehicle fleet and eight delivery sites.
Dashboards allow suppliers to know where their items are being delivered, check critical performance data, and book marketing. They can also run advertising and marketing campaigns in stores, give away products, and generate merchandising money.
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Jabu is now present in five African countries.
JABU Ecommerce JABU Ecommerce
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh