Namibian business to business e-commerce startup JABU has announced a N$236.4 million (U$15 million) Series A investment led by Tiger Global into the business.
The round, which closed sometime in March, is Tiger Global’s second investment in the B2B e-commerce space after backing Wasoko in its mega Series B round according to Techcrunch and comes after the business raised N$50.6 million (U$3.2 million) last year.
Other investors include Box Group, Knollwood and D Global Ventures. Some backers from its seed round: Afore Capital, Oldslip and FJ Labs also doubled down.
“This will allow us to continue growing, which brings our total capital and equity investment as a Namibian tech company to over US$18 million,” Jabu CEO David Akinin told delegates at a Namibian House event being hosted at the on-going World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.
He also announced the company was engaging the Bank of Namibia and the Bank of Zambia to launch a payment wallet, JWallet, to solve payment and cash issues currently faced by the business.
The product will be launched as a standalone product and will allow merchants in Southern Africa to use their physical flows to offer cash withdrawals and deposit services for their customers.
Akinin founded JABU in mid-2020 to fix Namibia’s inefficient and almost nonexistent supply chain and distribution.
Its platform connects over 6,000 retailers to local and multinational suppliers such as Namibia Breweries Limited, Bokomo, Coca-Cola, Namib Mills and digitizes orders, payments and logistics.
The Namibian startup has its fleet of vehicles along with eight distribution centers.
Suppliers using the platform have dashboards to see where their products are being delivered, check key performance indicators and book merchandising. They can also make advertising and marketing campaigns at shops, perform product giveaways and tap into merchandising revenue.
Jabu currently operates in five African countries.
