Key players seem to be raising the stakes in Africa’s ecommerce space. Earlier this week, two of South Africa’s biggest online shops — the Naspers-owned Kalahari and the Tiger Global-backed Takealot — announced that they’ll be merging, prompting discussion about its aftereffect on the industry as a whole. More recently, the South African media giant, Naspers, is reported to have lead a US$50-million investment in one of Nigeria’s biggest ecommerce shops, Konga.
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As reported by TechMoran, the exact number is not known but sits somewhere between US$40 and US$50-million. The round was lead by Naspers which already owns a 50% stake in Konga after it invested US$50-million back in February 2014.
Swedish Investment AB Kinnevik is also said to be raising its bets on the Nigerian ecommerce store’s future after it had injected US$25-million in January 2014.
This massive round of investment is interesting seeing that Naspers was expected to be pushing its resources into Kalahari after it unexpectedly shut down its African Internet Accelerator Programme early this year.
The company finds itself having to compete with the likes of Rocket Internet-backed Jumia. Konga founder and CEO Sim Shagaya told TechMoran that although Konga is facing challenges, there is massive opportunity in Africa:
We understand that the task before Konga is not easy. But we also understand that ecommerce will be hugely transformative and redemptive for Africa and Konga has an opportunity to play a huge role in that. Funding from smart investors allows us to right to bring our vision for African ecommerce to fruition.
“We are hoping to expand our engineering team. We are also looking to build out a dedicated logistics and fulfillment platform to help us deliver as well as accommodate merchants from the whole of Nigeria,” adds Shagaya. “Finally, some investments in core retail inventory is on the cards.”
Ventureburn has reached out to Konga for confirmation.
