E-commerce conglomerate, Jumia confirms filing for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange – a move that will make it the first African tech start-up to list on the exchange.
The company’s decision to go public comes on the heels of difficult times for B2C digital commerce in Nigeria.
The pending IPO creates a new milestone for Jumia. The company became Africa’s first startup unicorn in 2016, achieving a $1 billion valuation following a $326 million funding round that included Goldman Sachs, AXA and MTN.
With the IPO capital, Jumia will double down on its strategy and regional focus and will trade as JMIA on the NYSE.
In a statement to shareholders, the company said it is “the only e-commerce business successfully operating across multiple regions in Africa” with over four million active customers as at December, last year after a reshuffling of Internet’s online businesses under the Jumia brand in 2016 which contributed to this status. Other services de Logistics, its product delivery arm, and Jumia Pay, its payments solution.
The company model has also seen losses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars and totalling nearly $1 billion as at December 2018.
Jumia’s IPO will be the latest of public listings by Rocket Internet-backed companies as food startup Hello Fresh and Delivery Hero as well as furniture retailer Home24 have been listed on the Franfurt Stock Exchange in the last two years.