This article title should have read “Founder/owners Of Jumia Kenya” but that would be narrowing what the mammoth Jumia Market is. For beginners, the e-commerce platform was founded in Nigeria in 2012 after receiving substantial funding from Rocket Internet.
In less than a year, Jumia was spreading its tentacles in Ghana, Morocco and Kenya. Currently in 23 African countries, the expansion of the online shopping outlet-formerly known as Kyamu-has been nothing short of phenomenal.
Founders of Jumia Market
Jumia Market was founded by the duo of Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec.
Profile of Jeremy Hodara
His bio on Crunchbase.com reads:
Jeremy Hodara is the Founder & Managing Director, Africa and France at Rocket Internet GmbH.
Before joining Rocket Internet as Managing Director France, Jeremy Hodara worked at McKinsey in France, India and the US for 7 years where he was focusing on retail and e-commerce.
Jeremy holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from HEC Business School, France.
He is the founder of Jumia Group and Africa Internet Holding.
Sacha Poignonnec
He is the co-founder of Jumia Market and managing director of Jumia at Rocket Internet SE. Sacha worked at McKinsey, a consumer good and retail outlet before joining Rocket Internet AG.
Major Shareholders
Rocket Internet, MTN, Millicom, AXA, Goldman Sachs, Orange and CDC.
MTN
The South African Telcos is the biggest shareholder with a 40% stake in Jumia. According to reports appearing on Bloomberg, MTN is considering offloading its shares in the online retail company to help the telcos “reduce debt, which increased to 69.8 billion rand ($4.8 billion) at the end of June, compared with 57.1 billion rand six months earlier.”
Jumia, according to CrunchBase, has raised US$760 million funding from 2012.
Series A-2012 amount raised €40 from;
Rocket Internet, Milicon and Blackeney Management
Series B-2013 amount raised-€130 Million
Millicom, MTN and Rocket Internet
Series C –US$150 Million at a pre-money valuation of US$405
Summit Partners, Rocket Internet, Orange, Millicom Systems, MTN, Goldman Sachs, CDC Group and AXA Group.
Funding in 2016-US$326 Million from;
Goldman Sachs, MTN, Rocket Internet and other small timers.
Losses
The E-commerce retail outlet suffered a kes14.9 billion loss before tax and other costs in the year ended December compared to Sh11.3 billion a year earlier even though sales grew by 41.8 percent. This was blamed on increased investment in the company.
Complaints leveled Against Jumia
Jumia growth has been undermined by the unprofessionalism exhibited by their customer care agents. Their return policy is wanting and cases of substandard items being delivered have been reported more than once.
In an interview with Business Daily writer Jackson Biko, Jumia Kenya former MD Parinaz Firozi said of these complaints:
….We own the customer experience, meaning we have our own customer service and delivery service, we take care of the returns etc. But it is our vendors’ products that we are selling. We do not own the products.
So when you walk into a marketplace model, it means that you are a little dependent on the vendors you work with, right? The vendor will tell us that they have certain units and that they will be able to get it to us within a specified time, and then they don’t. We realise that this has had an impact on our customer experience.
