Amazon’s highly awaited entry into Africa has come to fruition, with the tech giant announcing the launch of its e-commerce marketplace in South Africa on Tuesday. The e-commerce giant revealed in a statement that its localized platform, Amazon.co.za, will provide customers with access to a wide array of local and international brands spanning 20 product […]
MarketForce winds down its B2B e-commerce arm
Kenyan B2B e-commerce company MarketForce is winding down its B2B e-commerce business that served informal merchants (mom-and-pop stores) after a turbulent two-year period that saw it scale down operations severely. The shutdown of the B2B e-commerce arm dubbed RejaReja comes months after MarketForce withdrew the service from all its markets, including Nigeria and Kenya, save […]
African B2B e-commerce giant Wasoko marked down to $260M after VC halves stake
VNV Global, a Swedish investment firm that backs startups in mobility, health and marketplaces, slashed the value of its holding in Wasoko, an African B2B e-commerce startup, by 48%, according to its annual report for 2023. In its annual report, VNV set Wasoko’s fair value at around $ 260 million as of December 2023, the month […]
Meet Uzbekistan’s first unicorn: e-commerce startup Uzum
Uzum, an e-commerce startup offering online shopping, fintech and food deliveries to millions of customers in Uzbekistan, has raised $ 114 million in funding, becoming the country’s first unicorn with a valuation of $ 1.16 billion. Uzbekistan is fertile ground for startups, given the fact that people aged below 30 constitute about 60% of its […]
Ingrid receives $23M to expand an e-commerce delivery platform that snubs ‘free shipping’
Ingrid — a startup out of Stockholm, Sweden, not this writer (unfortunately) — has raised €21 million, or just under $ 23 million, to fuel the growth of a business aiming to improve the last, messy mile of online shopping, delivery. Using data science and some big ideas about how delivery will evolve in the […]