Namibia-based tech entrepreneur David Akinin’s JABU raises $15 million from investors

JABU, a business-to-business e-commerce startup led by Namibia-based tech entrepreneur David Akinin, has raised $15 million in a Series-A funding round led by Tiger Global, a U.S. investment firm focused on the Internet, software, consumer, and financial technology industries.

Akinin, a Venezuelan entrepreneur, established JABU in mid-2020 as part of an effort to improve Namibia’s inefficient and nearly non-existent supply chain and distribution channels.

It has since grown into Southern Africa’s fastest-growing e-commerce platform for small retailers, connecting more than 6,000 retailers to local and multinational suppliers such as Namibia Breweries Limited, ABInBev, Bokomo, Coca-Cola, and Namibmills, as well as digitizing orders, payments, and logistics.

Its Series-A funding round was completed nearly four months after it raised $3.2 million in financing for its B2B e-commerce and retail play.

The startup revealed that the $15-million capital injection from institutional investors will be used to expand its presence in Southern Africa, with plans to enter new markets such as Botswana and Eswatini later this year.

Akinin commented on JABU’s competitive advantage, stating: “Many businesses like ours are taking money out of the market. We’re attempting to build a business that introduces products into the market and then continues on a journey that has a multiplier effect of moving that money 20 times around that market, and I believe that is the goal of developing the JABU wallet.”

He added that JABU intends to build out and around its Jwallet, which is presently available as a standalone product. “We’re connecting an API to banks into the interchange,” he explained, “so that someone who received money through the wallet can walk up to a JABU merchant and use their physical float to withdraw money.”

Jwallet enables Southern African merchants to use their physical flows to provide cash withdrawal and deposit services to their customers.

This strategic model is similar to agency banking, a branchless banking system in Nigeria and West Africa in which human agents serve as ATMs to provide financial services in outlying areas.