Africa's TradeDepot raises $110 million in Series B round
Nigeria-based B2B e-commerce and embedded finance platform, TradeDepot, has raised $110 million in an equity and debt funding round.
This will support the delivery of buy now, pay later services to five million SME retailers and drive further expansion of its merchant platform across the continent.
The Series B equity round was led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), with participation from Novastar, Sahel Capital, CDC Group, Endeavor Catalyst and existing investors, Partech and MSA Capital.
The debt funding was headed up by Arcadia Funds.
Via its ShopTopUp platform, TradeDepot offers a range of consumer goods to SME retailers within its network and provides credit lines to enable these companies to access inventory and pay in instalments as they sell on to their own customers.
Onyekachi Izukanne, CEO and Co-founder, TradeDepot, says: “We remain super focused on making digital commerce and financing both accessible and affordable to neighbourhood retailers across key cities in Africa.”
“We are delighted to be joined by an elite group of new investors and have IFC’s Wale Ayeni joining our board of directors, to support us on this journey to drive growth and prosperity across the continent.”
“The informal sector is a large and critical part of Africa’s economy, accounting for around 80% of jobs in the region,” says Makhtar Diop, IFC's Managing Director.
“We are excited to work with TradeDepot to leverage technology to help small businesses across the continent, particularly the many retailers led by women, access the resources they need to grow and scale.”
