ShopEX, a multi-channel retail company located in Nigeria and the sole distributors of some of the world’s most successful ‘As Seen On TV’ products, has acquired $400,000 in pre-seed funding from Cape Town venture capital firm HAVAÍC.
The investment is part of a US$635,000 convertible note round alongside existing angel investors, bringing total investment to $885,000 with previous involvement from EchoVC and Expert Media Partners.
ShopEX, founded in 2018, is on a goal to introduce teleshopping into Nigerians’ daily lives by delivering direct to consumer live shopping experiences.
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In Nigeria and other African markets, the company uses a combination of traditional and digital channels to market, sell, and distribute some of the world’s most successful ‘As Seen On TV’ products, such as Nutri-Bullet, Copper Chef, Power XL, Dream by Genie, Myfit Jeans, and Contour Pillow.
ShopEx, founded by CEO Isi Abebe and advised by Expert Media Partners (EMP), digitizes and combines the consumer journey across several channels or platforms, ranging from television to Instagram, in order to boost customer engagement and sales conversions.
Integrations with top last-mile partners optimize the fulfillment process by providing a countrywide, 24-hour delivery service. To maximize success, the technology continuously checks revenue, media expenditure, sales agent data, inventory, customer engagement, transactions, fulfillment, and logistics.
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“The debut of ShopEx corresponds nicely with expanding e-commerce and maturing logistics and payment infrastructures throughout Africa. These are critical elements in delivering a genuinely omnichannel experience “Abebe stated. “We are looking forward to launching an exciting pipeline of new items and strengthening our technology in order to provide a great client experience and expand our portfolio into new markets.”
Going forward, ShopEx is well-positioned to exploit Africa’s rapidly expanding e-commerce sector, which is being bolstered by high mobile phone penetration rates and social media growth. The company aspires to be the QVC of Africa, going beyond transactional ecommerce or traditional brick-and-mortar stores to provide customers with exciting live shopping experiences.
Customers should expect new initiatives in the near future, according to ShopEX Country Manager and former Jumia Chief Marketing Officer, Olajumoke Kujero.
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“We are overjoyed to receive this support from HAVAIC; it is a vote of confidence in our efforts to create Africa’s first genuinely omni-channel shopping experience spanning digital and traditional media.
With exciting initiatives like our soon-to-be-launched ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ program and several continuing retail and affiliate relationship discussions in the works, our consumers can expect to get the absolute best value for money spent on the high-quality, globally acclaimed products we offer,” he said.
This newest round of funding will allow ShopEx to expand its workforce, brand, product agreements, inventory, and operations into additional territories, with Ghana already in the works.
“ShopEx has the experience and network to capitalize on perhaps one of Africa’s most untapped retail prospects,” said Ian Lessem, Managing Partner of HAVAC. “What’s more, because of their scalable technology, ShopEx can leverage social media and crucial collaborations with the likes of Multichoice, Jumia, and Alibaba to spearhead the market’s expansion of multi-channel shopping.”
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HAVAIC announced the third and final closure of its HAVAIC Universum Core African Fund earlier this month, marking the VC firm’s second pan-African fund. The fund, which now includes ShopEx as a portfolio firm, has already invested a third of its capital in early-stage African digital startups such as CrowdForce, CompariSure, Kuda, Mobiz, HearX, and Tanda, among others.
Shopex is Nigeria’s first worldwide tele-shopping portal, designed to provide Nigerians with direct access to major global market products. Using television as its primary platform, ShopEX provides the Nigerian market with a diverse choice of lifestyle, fitness, and kitchen products that they can purchase at low costs simply by using their mobile phones to place orders. ShopEX is Africa’s sole distributor of the world’s most successful ‘As Seen On TV’ products.
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