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I also forgot to mention in my original comment that Jumia DOES actually have African founders. The company was originally founded as Kasuwa by Tunde Kehinde(N
by chirau 8y ago
I also forgot to mention in my original comment that Jumia DOES actually have African founders.
The company was originally founded as Kasuwa by Tunde Kehinde(Nigeria) and Raphael Afaedor(Ghana) but for legal reasons had to change its name to Jumia. It is shortly after that that they received funding from Rocket Internet who brought on financing and two other German co-founders for the new entity that was Jumia.
The two African founders have since left the company, though.
- amolo 8y agoTo be honest. It was set up by Germans with Africans as the face in order to easily penetrate the African market. PR everywhere.
- amolo 8y agoWhy would Africans setup a company and incoorporate it in Germany and call it a Nigerian company
- chirau 8y agoTo attract capital of course. "Money can be raised for Africa, not in Africa." Most venture capital is still still skeptical of pumping money directly into sub-Saharan Africa and would rather do it via a company registered in a well regulated area. It should not come to you as a surprise that most of the promising, and/or funded African startups are incorporated either in Delaware or California. Initiatives like Stripe Atlas are there specifically for these two purposes: 1) To allow foreign entities to do business in the US 2) To allow foreign entities to raise capital in the US, regardless of their primary market of operation. The second is testimony to why African startups would rather incorporate elsewhere. Funding pools in Africa are small and foreign investment in hesitant, so any serious African startup will, statistically, have better chances incorporating elsewhere.