The board of directors of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has approved a disbursement of $1.7 million USD (approximately 1.027 billion XOF) as a loan to the Ivorian startup Anka (formerly Afrikrea), instead of the initially planned $3.4 million. This information comes from the institution’s website.
IFC did not provide the reasons for this reduction in the requested amount but indicated that the financing was granted within the framework of the mixed financing facility of the private sector IDA-20 window. This program launched by the World Bank targets five priority areas: economic transformation; agriculture, livestock, and food security; human capital; digital and technological innovations; and energy transition.
Founded in 2016 and based in Abidjan, ANKA is an online platform for the sale of African fashion products (clothing, clothing accessories, and artisanal products) from various creators across the continent. According to the IFC, the majority of merchants using the platform are small businesses based in Africa, while buyers are distributed across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia, among others. The institution’s investment will enable the company to finance the expansion of its activities in Côte d’Ivoire and other IDA-eligible countries.
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This marks the second funding obtained by Anka in less than a year. In October 2022, the startup had secured €5.4 million (3.6 billion XOF) in a pre-Series A financing. In addition to the financial investment, Anka is expected to benefit from advisory services and capacity strengthening from the IFC, particularly in terms of corporate governance.
Beyond the investment, IFC Advisory and the company are also considering further collaboration through advisory services, notably in corporate governance matters. “Beyond the project, this investment has the potential to enhance the integration of creative industries in Francophone Africa into global value chains through enabling frameworks, as successful expansion would make the creative products of target countries more visible in international markets, resulting in increased creative exports,” stated the institution.
UPDATE: ANKA announced on September 19th, 2023, that the entire amount of the pre-Series A round amounted to $5 million (a mixture of debt and equity). Apart from the IFC, which led this round, fellow development finance institution Proparco, and the French investment bank Bpifrance, also participated.
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