An e-commerce startup in Africa named Jendaya has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding with the intention of coordinating cross-border trade between African and international luxury brands.
With this pre-seed capital, Jendaya, a one-year-old firm that serves as a portal for international luxury companies to the African continent and for consumers in the rest of the world to find African brands, is emerging covertly.
Anu Adedoyin Adasolum, the CEO of Sabi, and several angel investors participated in the pre-seed round as investors. The firm has also gotten funding from Ada VC, Maisie Williams, Bizzle Osikoya, and Asa Asika, two powerful musicians.
The e-commerce platform links African and African diaspora luxury brands with high-end consumers worldwide and African consumers to global brands in the areas of apparel, beauty, home decor, and accessories.
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How Jendaya Operates
By “positioning African names seamlessly in the same league as seasoned western labels such as Issey Miyake, Lanvin, and Givenchy,” the company claims that it hopes to highlight the wealth of talent and storytelling coming from the area.
The year-old online store has completed about 300 orders in the 13 months since its debut. According to Rufai, the average order value per shopping cart is $350, less than one-third of the benchmark, which is frequently $750 to $1,500, set by well-known luxury e-commerce enterprises.
“Customers are warming up to our platform, and selling luxury online is a different ball game. You need to build credibility, you need to build trust, and consumers need to consistently be aware of the platform and the brands we have,” remarked the chief executive addressing Jendaya’s order value compared to offline stores.
So, according to the statement made by the CEO, they approach the market by building trust with their customers around the globe. This means they make sure their supplies are of the best quality so that they can get good reviews which in turn would lead to more people purchasing their products.
What Jendaya Is All About
With offices in London, New York, and Lagos, Jendaya is a platform with an emphasis on Africa. Ayotunde Rufai, the company’s CEO, along with David Elikwu, Kemi Adetu, and Teni Sagoe formed (CSO). The startup was founded in December 2021 after frequently acting as a personal shopper for pricey items in the U.K. for families in Nigeria.
With an approach that promotes slow fashion, artisan craft, made-to-order luxury goods, and developing talent, Jendaya sponsors a portfolio of businesses that includes Brooklyn-based minimalist accessories brand Marty Moto and others that blend heritage into a modern context, notably Kenyan brand Adele Dejak.
“Jendaya is a luxury e-commerce platform for the Global Citizen — Africa included being the most important part because the African citizen is also very global, they’re very metropolitan, well traveled and exposed, they’re tastemakers,” said Rufai of the regular Jendaya shopper.
“So these customers don’t just want Orange Culture, they want to mix the Orange Culture with Versace. They want to mix a Bottega with Valero and Casablancas and other new brands coming out worldwide. These consumers dictate our brand offerings in that sense.”
Collaborations
By collaborating with DHL and utilizing the reputation and extensive network of the logistics giant, Jendaya also ships these designer items from Africa, Asia, the U.K., the U.S., and Europe to customers throughout the world. The richest black and diasporan regions, including the UK, Nigeria, Ghana, and the US, have witnessed the strongest support for Jendaya.
According to Rufai, the upscale e-commerce platform with headquarters in London has signed up with up to 70 businesses via an invite-only trial program and direct contacts with multi-brand boutique partners. He claims that number will triple this year, though. According to Jendaya, doing this will encourage luxury e-commerce on the continent and support the international promotion of more African luxury designers.
In 2019, the market for luxury goods in Africa and the Middle East was valued at over $35 billion, with designer clothing and shoes accounting for more than $7 billion of the total. Behind such transactions is cross-border trade, in which African firms export their products to a global market through personal shoppers.
On many e-commerce platforms, clothing is one of, if not the most, popular categories. For example, fashion has consistently ranked first on Jumia as the most popular category of goods sold in Africa. This indicates that there is no scarcity of demand for fashion items on the continent and that even in the high-end categories, the supply is increasing.
Although several platforms have used technology to centralize these operations across various price points, the majority of e-commerce transactions between African consumers and foreign companies have been conducted informally through established links.
In addition to the e-commerce goods, the website also provides B2B services that, up to this point, have brought in about $100,000 in revenue. Additionally, Casablanca, Ozwald Boateng, Paul Smith, and Burberry are just a handful of the companies that Jendaya Labs, the startup’s creative agency, claims as clients.
With special emphasis on delivering high-quality products to their customers worldwide and effective collaboration with relevant brands, Jendaya sets itself apart from other brands. Also, with the recently secured funding, Jendaya would be looking to make 2023 a better year for themselves and their clients too.