Namibian B2B e-Commerce Startup JABU Raises $3.2 Million In Funding

JABU, a business-to-business e-commerce startup based in Namibia raised $3.2 million in a seed funding round closed last year. The funding round saw the participation of Y Combinator, FJ Labs, Quiet Capital, Afore Capital, Kli Capital, Parento Capital as well as angel investors that weren’t disclosed.   

JABU’s operation involves assisting small and medium scale retailers order and stock up products as well as providing data-driven services to producers and suppliers. The startup, founded by David Akinin in 2020, emerged to face the problem of inefficiency and supply chain distribution in Namibia. JABU boasts of connecting more than 6,000 retailers to both local and foreign suppliers, and digitalizing orders, payments and logistics.

For a startup that’s less than two years old, JABU has achieved some impressive feats. It got into Y Combinator during the accelerator’s summer batch in 2021 and is the first Namibian startup to get in. The startup also has its own fleet of vehicles and eight distribution centres that makes its operations easy. It is operational in three Namibian cities and recently expanded into Zambia where it is currently operating in two cities.

Since March 2021, JABU’s GMV has grown 25 times while its revenue has grown 35 times within the same period, the company revealed.

The company, through its platform, is also attempting to digitalize payments via wallets. Namibia is one of the many African countries that are heavily reliant on physical cash. With its platform, JABU will allow for immediate payments and withdrawal of funds.

Speaking on why JABU is creating wallets for merchants, David Akinin said that  “Our volumes growth grew so much and we’ve picked up so much money in physical currency, the banks and others have sat down and said, ‘How can we fix this?’ I mean, we went from having a couple R100,000 (rands) a week to having millions of Namibian dollars. And we realized there’s something better and bigger than we originally tapped into”.

He also added that the next stage of the platform’s wallet system would have merchants offering services to consumers via their digitalized cash. “The only way to do that is by partnering with the merchants, and they go through a [know your customer] process, we make sure the merchants have the right space and the right account to back their float. And then they transact with their customers. So we’re entering the B2B2C space through the merchants that we work with”, the founder said.

JABU joins the list of startups helping Africa gain more recognition and is definitely one startup to watch out for as JABU has huge potentials for growth.