African fashion e-commerce startup MAKA, has announced a pre-seed round of $2.65 million. The Company pre-seed round was led by Pan-African venture capital firms 4DX Ventures and Janngo Capital.
Other investors include Palm Drive Capital, angel investor Jonathan Shipman, founder of EVP and Twitch founding member, and executives from delivery platform Wolt.
The funds is going to assist Maka in satisfying the escalating needs of the continent’s e-commerce sector. At the moment, McKinsey Global Institute projects that the sector will reach a valuation of $75 billion by 2025.
Maka, which was founded in 2021 by Diana Owusu-Kyereko. The Startup is a platform that helps to meet the demand of the burgeoning African e-commerce industry.
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How MAKA works
Maka works by providing a unique social commerce model. The model connects influencers and consumers by bringing them together. Likewise , it helps them to share style advice, reviews, and live try-on videos of the products they are interested in.
Moreover, it also helps user-generated content from both creators and customers. It enables users to discover products tailored to their styles in a scalable way.
Additionally, the platform identifies and solves two fundamental problems. Firstly, it solves trust issue in the buying process. Secondly, it solves the challenge creators face in monetizing their influence.
Notably, the platform offers a review option. The option allows customers who make purchases to share their feedback through video reviews. Normally, the video is usually between 30 and 60 seconds long. These reviews provide valuable insights for other users, influencing their buying decisions.
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Maka Growth
Since its inception, Maka claims to have garnered over 500,000 downloads. The numbers it acquired via its initial model of engaging with creators through live sessions. However, from its user-generated content model launched two months ago, the two-year-old startup has seen over 2,000 reviews created.
At the same time, the Company is now driven by rapidly increasing technology adoption. The company is particularly among the continent’s 1.1 billion millennials and Gen Zs. Lately, Africa’s e-commerce market presents a largely untapped market for fashion brands.
Over the past few years, e-commerce penetration in Africa has surged. It has surged from 13% active paying customers in the general African population in 2017 to 28% in 2021. This figure represents 334 million users.
On the other hand, rapid growth has accelerated the development of Africa’s fashion sector, allowing brands to access a wider base of consumers across the continent.