Having acquired £1 million (about $1.2 million) in pre-seed capital, Jendaya, a one-year-old Nigerian startup that serves as a portal for international luxury companies to the African continent and for consumers in the rest of the world to discover African brands, has emerged stealthily.
Anu Adedoyin Adasolum, CEO of Sabi, and a number of angel investors participated in Jendaya’s pre-seed round as investors. The firm has also secured funding from Ada VC, Culture Capital, Maisie Williams, Bizzle Osikoya, and Asa Asika, two well-known musicians.
Since its debut 13 months ago, the year-old e-commerce startup has processed about 300 orders, according to a statement from the business. According to Rufai, the average order value per shopping cart is $350, which is less than a third of the benchmark — often $750 to $1,500 — set by popular luxury e-commerce sites.
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A Look At What The Startup Does
Ayotunde Rufai, CEO of the London-based but Africa-focused business, had the idea to launch Jendaya after frequently serving as a personal shopper for upscale goods in the U.K. for family in Nigeria. They founded Jendaya in December 2021 and were joined by other co-founders COO Kemi Adetu, CCO Teni Sagoe, and CSO David Elikwu. They were based in London, New York, and Lagos.
“We wanted to make a platform where Africans on the continent should they want Gucci loafers or Bottega bags, they don’t have to jump through hoops or have a month or few weeks’ delay because they can have that in their hands in some days or a week, so that’s why we started Jendaya,” said Rufai.
The e-commerce platform links African and African diaspora luxury brands with wealthy customers worldwide and African consumers to international brands in the areas of fashion, beauty, home decor, and accessories. By “placing African names seamlessly in the same league as seasoned western labels such as Issey Miyake, Lanvin, and Givenchy,” the firm claims that it hopes to highlight the wealth of talent and narrative coming from the area.
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“Jendaya is a luxury e-commerce platform for the Global Citizen — Africa included being the most important part because the African citizen is also very global, they’re very metropolitan, well traveled and exposed, they’re tastemakers,” said Rufai of the regular Jendaya shopper. “So these customers don’t just want Orange Culture, they want to mix the Orange Culture with Versace. They want to mix a Bottega with Valero and Casablancas and other new brands coming out worldwide. These consumers dictate our brand offerings in that sense.”
Jendaya sponsors a portfolio of firms that includes Brooklyn-based minimalist accessories brand Marty Moto and others that blend heritage into a modern context, such Kenyan brand Adele Dejak, with an attitude that encourages slow fashion, artisan craft, made-to-order luxury items, and developing talent. In addition, emerging names like Casablanca, founded by Moroccan designer Charaf Tajer, a finalist for the 2020 LVMH Prize, stand out. Alledjo, a Beninese-French silk shirt company.
Jendaya also ships these designer items from Africa, Asia, the U.K., the U.S., and Europe to customers throughout the world by partnering with DHL and capitalising on the logistics giant’s reputation and enormous network. The marketplaces that represent the wealthiest black and diasporan neighbourhoods, like the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, and the US, have so far given Jendaya the most traction.
Despite having signed on up to 70 companies through an invite-only trial and direct connections with multi-brand boutique partners, the London-based luxury e-commerce platform wants to treble that number this year. Jendaya hopes that by doing this, it will support luxury e-commerce on the continent and help more African designers of fine goods gain recognition abroad.
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The site also offers B2B services, which have generated around $100,000 in income up to this point, in addition to the e-commerce product. There is Jendaya Editorial, which highlights not only the businesses carried by the platform but also significant historical and seasonal news with the goal of motivating a global audience. And Jendaya Labs, the startup’s creative firm, which has worked with brands like Casablanca, Paul Smith, Burberry, and Ozwald Boateng, to name a few. Along with a distinct focus on luxury goods, Rufai claims that Jendaya distinguishes itself from other larger Afrocentric fashion e-commerce platforms like ANKA in this way. “The idea is not just African brands to the world, which is one element of what we do, but it’s also global brands to Africa,” the CEO added.
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