Investor Updates: January 19 2022 - Kenya's Copia closes $50m Series C round

Story 1: Kenya’s Copia closes $50m Series C round

Highlights

• Copia Global, a Kenyan B2C e-commerce platform, has raised $50 million in a Series C equity round led by Goodwell Investments with participation from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), German development finance institution DEG, and others.
• Founded in 2013, Copia serves middle- and low-income African consumers across East Africa. The company combines mobile technologies, a network of 30,000 local agents, and proprietary Copia Logistics to reach a market that traditional retail and online e-commerce models cannot.
• The round comes three years after Copia’s Series B round of $26 million and is expected to help the company grow its model across the region. 

Source: TechCrunch

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Distribution challenges, especially in rural parts of Africa, have plagued businesses on the continent for years, often resulting in exorbitant pricing of goods for consumers and high logistical costs for e-commerce players like Jumia and Konga. Copia’s unique model combines online channels and an offline agent network, allowing customers to choose how they interact with the company and has seen it record 1.4 million unique customers, a CAGR of about 200%, and fulfilled more than 10 million orders to date. Agent networks are well known in Africa’s financial services sector, but Copia’s model shows they can be used for other services beyond mobile money.

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Story 2: Senegal-based PAPS gets $4.5m for expansion

Highlights

• PAPS, a Senegalese delivery company, has raised a $4.5 million pre-Series A round to expand its tech-enabled logistics solution across the francophone Africa region.
• The investment was co-led by pan-African venture capital firm 4DX Ventures and telecom operator Orange. Yamaha Motor, Google Ventures, Kepple Ventures, and others also participated.
• Founded in 2016, PAPS claims it handles distribution for 70% of all pharmacies in Senegal and serves even major logistics players and e-commerce brands across its two markets (including Ivory Coast).

Source: TechCrunch

Zoom Out 

Across Africa, last-mile logistics and delivery remain the bane of many businesses but in recent years, quite a number of startups have emerged on the continent to solve the problem through technology. These companies, like PAPS, make courier and delivery services available to small, medium, and large businesses via mobile devices as well as assist them with logistics needs, from storage and international transport to last-mile delivery. These services are particularly crucial to Africa’s e-commerce market, which is increasingly growing and expected to hit $75 billion in value by 2025, per McKinsey.

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Story 3: QED Investors hires African partner

Highlights

• QED Investors has hired an African partner, Gbenga Ajayi, who will focus on Africa investments as part of the company’s international team.
• Last September, the venture capital firm closed its 7th fund at $1.05 billion to back fintech companies in the US, UK, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and now Africa.
• Ajayi has worked in different roles across Africa and global tech and venture funding. He brings a much-needed experience to QED as the VC aims to play in a region where fintechs face relatively more regulatory and compliance hurdles.

Source: Business Wire

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Nowhere is early-stage, tech-driven innovation and entrepreneurial activity more exciting than it is in Africa currently. Boasting the world’s youngest population and abundant entrepreneurial talent, the continent’s potential has been able to attract some of the largest players in the global venture capital community, who are increasingly pouring capital into the major tech startup ecosystems in Africa. Last year, African startups raised a whopping $4.65 billion in disclosed funding rounds, per a Briter Bridges report, with the vast majority of the investments coming from the US and UK. The move by QED suggests Africa will continue to see a wide breadth and diversity of VC investors from all over the world.