Ella Peinovich is continuing her serial entrepreneurship journey, and nothing seems to be stopping her soon. An architecture graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she has been in Kenya since 2010, where she has busy been founding one company after another. In 2018, she stepped down as the CEO of Soko, an fashion ecommerce which connects mobile-enabled artisans from developing countries directly to brands, retailers, and online customers around the world. What followed next was Powered by People, a B2B startup which will provide aggregating businesses, like Soko, with a set of digital and financial tools to facilitate distributed production of goods ranging from personal and home accessories, to personal essentials, to boutique agribusiness products. Now, barely 3 years of founding Powered by People, landed a remarkable $5m seed investment, unusual for an African retail-tech startup.

Susa Ventures and Golden Ventures led the equity round, with participation from a number of investors, including Flexport Ventures, J Ventures, and Fabric, the founders of DraftKings. It increases the startup’s total funding to $7 million, having previously received assistance from a variety of investors, including Founders Factory Africa, Mercy Corps, and the Mastercard Foundation.

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“We are going to continue building up our technology…we have new vendor tools we are launching this quarter that will help streamline and automate things to help these businesses take on bigger orders and grow. We are also investing in building our senior leadership,” Powered by People co-founder and CEO Ella Peinovich said.

Why The Investors Invested

The startup has generated considerable traction since it was founded. The company collaborates with over 200 brands and over 45,000 craftspeople from 47 countries that sell to retailers such as West Elm and The Citizenry in major markets such as North America and Asia. By mid-March, the company had an annualized run rate of $15 million in total gross merchandise value, which they hope to increase to $25 million before the end of the year. The platform’s orders average $1,200.

The business, which also provides up to 50% advance funding to traders to assist them fulfill customer orders fast, has already given out $5.8 million in credit to traders and expects to provide an additional $10 million before the end of the year. The 120-day facility has a 5% interest rate.

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It is also notable that the latest investment also came from angel investors, who invested up to $1.5m. DraftKings Inc. is a digital sports entertainment and gaming company with products that range across daily fantasy, regulated gaming and digital media. Headquartered in Boston, and launched in 2012 by Jason Robins, Matt Kalish and Paul Liberman, DraftKings is the only U.S.-based vertically integrated sports betting operator.

A Look At What The Startup Does

Founded in 2019 by Ella Peinovich and Hedvig Alexander, who are both serial founders, Powered by People is B2B model which connects handmade and natural cosmetic producers across Africa, Asia and Latin America via a wholesale platform, offering retailers credit lines with flexible payments, discovery of diverse global brands and products, and the ability to customise products for exclusive offers in their store. Its brands are global suppliers to companies such as William Sonoma, IKEA, Crate and Barrel, Nordstroms and Goop, among others.

“I learned a lot from my eight years with Soko. By the time I stepped down as CEO, we had built a successful enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, developed a network of about 2,500 producers, and generated four million USD in sales into some of the largest international retailers. However, I also saw that, while we were still able to grow our sales and revenue year over year, our impact was starting to stagnate. We launched Soko with the belief that our impact would always grow with our sales, but we found that as we began to benefit from the pricing afforded by the brand’s popularity, our unit volume languished. Moreover, the seasonality of demand was leaving the capacity of our producer network sorely underutilized,” Ella.

“So, I branched off from Soko to work out a new solution which could enable a system level shift,” she added.

Powered By People is currently piloting its offering with creative manufacturing groups in India, Guatemala, and Ethiopia comprising over 3,000 artisans and producers.

powered by people Kenya ecommerce powered by people Kenya 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