Rocket Internet’s flagship African e-commerce site Jumia is celebrating its first year anniversary with US$35 million funding from Millicom.
Rocket Internet, which has created more than 100 companies in more than 40 countries, revealed the funds will be used to increase growth and expansion.
The company stated: “This funding comes in addition to recent investments from J.P. Morgan and Summit Partners. The funding, which represents the largest investment in a Nigerian e-commerce startup, allows Jumia to continue its rapid growth and serve even more customers across Nigeria.
“Concurrently, Jumia announced its move to a new 90,000sqft warehouse in Lagos which will house 500 employees and create the largest e-commerce campus in West Africa.”
Commenting on the development, co-founder of Jumia, Raphael Afaedor, said the company has achieved a lot within one year.
“Almost a year ago, we started with three employees building up an ecommerce platform in Nigeria,” Afaedor said. “Now, we have more than 500 employees and offer Nigerian’s youth great opportunities to work in one of the leading e-commerce companies in Africa.”
Tunde Kehinde, Jumia’s co-founder, revealed plans for the first year anniversary celebrations.
“After this tremendous one year run we want to say thank you to our employees, customers, partners and all Nigerians. Since our creation we have supported education programs to empower children and we want to use this anniversary to give back to society,” Kehinde said.
