IFC leads $5m extension round in Ivorian e-commerce ANKA

Highlights

• ANKA, an Ivorian SaaS e-commerce platform for African businesses, has raised $5 million from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco, and BPI France.
• The pre-Series A extension round is a mix of equity and debt; last January, ANKA, formerly Afrikrea, raised $6.2 million. 
• The seven-year-old startup has secured $13.5 million from investors since its inception and will use the fresh investment to strengthen product development and expand services in its key markets Nigeria, Kenya, and the US.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Globally, the African diaspora is spread out across several countries. An estimated 36 million Africans live outside the country of their birth, with just over 50% residing within the continent. The sheer size of the African Diaspora means there’s a large potential market for African cultural items outside the continent. This is an opportunity for local retailers to boost African exports with the help of e-commerce platforms and solutions like ANKA, which handle all the resource-intensive components, including marketing, cross-border shipping, and payments.