Kenya-based Copia Global is revolutionising the e-commerce industry in Africa by providing a mobile-first e-commerce service aimed at unbanked customers. To make this possible, they have developed proprietary logistics to offer convenient delivery of goods.
Recently, they have secured $50M in Series C funding to build upon their mission and expand their operations. So let’s take a closer look at this groundbreaking venture.
Kenya-based Copia Global, which uses proprietary logistics for a mobile-first e-commerce service aimed at unbanked customers in Africa, raises a $50M Series C
Founded in 2012, Kenya-based Copia Global is a mobile-first e-commerce service that provides unbanked customers access to essential retail goods throughout Africa. The company operates a network of micro-distribution centres and focuses on using proprietary logistics to deliver crucial products at scale.
Since its founding, Copia Global has raised over $50M in total funding, including a $50M Series C in 2019 led by Creation Investments Social Ventures Fund I and Zephyr Accel Partners. The company operates across five African countries and plans to expand into other countries where e-commerce still needs development.
Copia Global’s platform provides hyperlocal services for customers with limited access to basic amenities like banking services and shopping outlets. Through its data-driven delivery model and a proprietary team of drivers, the company leverages tech capabilities like predictive analytics, route optimization algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI) technology to reduce delivery time and increase operational efficiency significantly. The platform also offers payment options such as cash on delivery or direct payment through e-money wallets or pre-paid cards linked directly to the customer’s phone account balance — making it easier for customers without bank accounts to purchase products online.
Overview of proprietary logistics for mobile-first e-commerce
Copia Global is a Kenya-based e-commerce company established in 2008. The company specialises in mobile-first commerce and is designed to serve unbanked customers in Africa. To facilitate its operations, Copia Global employs a proprietary logistics technology for e-commerce that enables customers to easily order items online and have them delivered to their homes or workplaces. This proprietary logistics system has allowed Copia Global to expand its reach and customer base to several African markets. Led by prominent venture capital investors, Copia Global has managed to raise $50M through its Series C funding round as of 2020.
The proprietary features of Copia’s logistics system are split up into three key components: i) fulfilment centres, ii) delivery fleets, and iii) customer service solutions. The fulfilment centers across multiple African countries receive orders from customers who have purchased goods online through the company’s mobile app and web service. These are then carefully stored in the designated warehouses before being shipped out for delivery. To ensure satisfactory order deliveries with speed, Copia runs its delivery fleet consisting of experienced drivers and motorbikes equipped with GPS at every location across different parts of Africa so that orders can be tracked in real-time and delivered on time without any hiccups as efficiently as possible. Finally, for customer service inquiries handling complaints, dispute resolution provides 24-hour customer service support via their dedicated online helpdesk called “AskCopa,” where customers can air their grievances promptly and get quick solutions from the support team within a reasonable time frame.
Copia Global’s Proprietary Logistics
Kenya-based Copia Global, founded in 2013, is a mobile-first e-commerce service that provides its users with access to goods and services at an affordable price. To achieve this, Copia Global has developed its own proprietary logistics system based on several mobile and web technologies.
Copia Global can provide services to remote and underserved African communities through these logistics. In addition, the company recently announced a $50M Series C funding round, furthering its mission to provide access to goods and services to unbanked African customers.
How it works
Copia Global is a Kenya-based company that offers an innovative mobile-first e-commerce service designed to help unbanked people in Africa access the items they need quickly and securely. The firm’s proprietary logistics technology allows customers to pick up their orders at local pickup points or deliver their orders directly to them via motorbike couriers.
The pickup points are strategically placed in communities with high demand for goods, such as supermarkets and convenience stores, allowing customers to collect their orders without travelling long distances. The app also allows customers to track where their deliveries are in real-time from the moment they place an order, making it easier than ever for users to keep tabs on when they can expect their goods.
Copia Global runs background checks on its delivery riders to ensure maximum security for its customers and has established rigorous safety mechanisms that certify pickup points and deliveries. Moreover, all pickups and deliveries are digitally verified with a unique barcode scanning system that automatically logs when each request has been collected or delivered – helping ensure complete accountability throughout the process.
By using innovative technology such as proprietary logistics, Copia Global can offer a mobile-first e-commerce service that meets customer needs and provides reliable security measures – helping make available goods previously out of reach for unbanked African citizens.
Benefits of proprietary logistics
Kenya-based Copia Global leverages proprietary logistics to provide a mobile-first e-commerce service for unbanked African customers. Their logistics solution helps solve the challenge of delivering seamless, convenient access to goods and services for customers who need access to traditional cash payments or credit cards. Copia Global’s proprietary logistics offer several advantages, such as:
1. Improved Shopping Experience: Copia’s integrated logistics platform enables customers to easily find and purchase goods across categories while availing of discounts and special deals. With Copia’s door-to-door delivery service, customers can save time by avoiding travelling further distances to purchase goods.
2. Reliable Delivery: The organisation’s network of domestic and international couriers provides an efficient and dependable delivery system that ensures that customers receive the purchased items promptly regardless of their physical distance from store locations. This is especially important for unbanked clients with limited resources who cannot afford to be at the mercy of unreliable third-party providers.
3. Reduced Fees: Through its efficient distribution network, Copia Global can lower operational costs and reduce prices associated with commissions or fees from third-party shipping providers, resulting in savings that benefit its customers even further by reducing their overall expense for purchased items. Alongside this, by cutting out intermediaries costs, these savings can also create multiples within profit margins for buyers & sellers alike, thereby driving greater gains within product markets as well as creating more competitive advantageous opportunities & product innovation across other future ventures – particularly within African based innovative e-commerce businesses models looking for mobile-first solutions for their end users & B2B partners alike.
Key features of the logistics system
Copia Global’s proprietary logistics system is built to enable the company to serve its unbanked customer base in Africa with a seamless mobile-first e-commerce service. Specifically, four key elements enable Copia Global to offer such a revolutionary service:
1. Mobility: The Copia Global logistics system is designed to enable remote African locations to access Copia’s services even without internet connectivity. This includes using SMS messages, USSD codes, and voice calls as communication formats – allowing people in remote regions with low or no internet access to still have access.
2. Efficient Order Processing: The Copia Global logistics system is built on an intuitive understanding of African markets, enabling orders from any geographic location within Africa to be fulfilled quickly and efficiently as demand increases or decreases.
3. End-to-end Connectivity: The Copia Global logistics system connects customers and suppliers through multiple channels, eliminating any potential order bottlenecks by increasing transparency between stakeholders across the entire ordering journey – from initiation of a request for fulfilment till delivery and subsequent feedback loop for all stakeholders including customers, shops & vendors.
4. Real-time Monitoring & Tracking: The Copia Global platform enables real-time tracking at each stage of order fulfilment – from placing an order, discovery of shops/vendors offering desired items at competitive prices & completing the order in a reliable time frame at the lowest cost possible – thereby ensuring minimum execution time & lower cost of fulfilment even under chaotic market situations due disruptions caused by 1) fluctuating seasonal demand & 2) lack of supporting necessary logistic infrastructure that can lead up to breakdowns or bottlenecks due bottlenecking & preventional blocks, etc.
Expansion Plans
Kenya-based Copia Global recently raised a $50M Series C to fuel its expansion plans. Copia Global provides a mobile-first e-commerce service aimed at unbanked African customers, leveraging their proprietary logistics to offer various services. The investment is expected to expand their services and operations, particularly in newer countries.
Let’s examine their plans and how they can capitalise on this capital injection.
Expansion into new markets
In its latest round of funding, Kenya-based Copia Global is setting its sights on expanding its reach into new markets. With the help of the $50 million Series C, the company aims to capitalise on the trend toward mobile-first e-commerce in Africa and extend its proprietary logistics services.
Copia Global’s expansion into new markets will focus on countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where many people need access to traditional brick-and-mortar retail services or banks. The company’s specially designed platform gives unbanked customers direct access to goods and services through mobile phones. They strive to be a one-stop shop that connects consumers with sellers and provides them with efficient delivery options and quality assurance.
The company plans to leverage its proprietary technology and digitally connected network of local micro distributors to move goods efficiently while lowering operational costs. This will give users improved access to goods from local and international vendors, creating an environment where small businesses can more easily expand their offerings across borders. In addition, this investment will help Copia Global establish expertise in e-commerce supply chain management for easier collaborations with third parties such as tech partners, retailers, providers of payment services, and digital infrastructure companies.
By expanding into new markets across Africa, Copia Global will remain dedicated to improving the lives of hundreds of millions of people by increasing household incomes while driving positive economic development and creating jobs via a sustainable business model that considers both social and environmental impact pain points from cradle-to-grave.
Expansion of customer base
Copia Global is committed to expanding its customer base of unbanked customers in Africa and supporting its e-commerce needs. Copia Global aims to reach and serve more low-income and rural communities in Africa by expanding its field operations team and developing a robust infrastructure that utilises proprietary technology developed with its partner organisations.
Copia will also increase its product offerings by adding additional retailers, categories of items, payment methods, distribution networks, delivery logistics, and other services such as food & grocery delivery so that customers can meet their daily needs more conveniently.
Moreover, the company will invest significantly in customer education initiatives targeting current and potential customers. Hence, they understand the benefits of using mobile technology to access goods/services via e-commerce channels instead of depending on traditional means such as retail stores or markets. This will help Copia deepen relationships with existing customers while onboarding more new ones each month who are looking for experienced service providers specialising in shipping goods purchased online directly to homes or workplaces.
Expansion of services
Kenya-based Copia Global is expanding its proprietary logistics for a mobile-first e-commerce service aimed at unbanked African customers as part of a $50M Series C raise. This expanded service seeks to meet the needs of the rapidly growing African e-commerce sector, estimated to reach up to $32 billion by 2025, emphasising driving financial inclusion.
Maximum accessibility is expected as part of this expansion, including expanding support for customers without internet access or debit/credit cards. The goal is to ensure that anyone can benefit from the services, no matter their current access level or geographical location.
The new service will offer additional value beyond online purchases by directly delivering financial services such as payments, transfers, insurance, and rewards from within the app. Launched initially in Kenya and Ethiopia and expanding into other African markets later this year, these services make it easy for users to engage with local communities, educational resources, and training programs.
This will include regional ancillary services such as bank account opening; digital vs. physical delivery option; warehousing & logistics set up; fulfilment centres & recharging outlets; last mile delivery support; customer training sessions & special promotions -all aimed at helping build local economic empowerment and growth by providing more options for profitable trading opportunities small businesses may not otherwise have access to.
Series C Funding
Kenya-based Copia Global, the e-commerce platform that provides unbanked customers in Africa with a mobile-first e-commerce service, recently announced a $50M Series C round of funding.
This funding will be used to fuel their proprietary logistics, helping the platform to reach more customers. In addition, this funding round will enable Copia Global to expand its services across Africa and beyond.
Overview of the Series C funding
On August 3rd, 2018, Kenya-based Copia Global announced that it had raised a $50 million Series C funding round. This latest round was led by Partech, a venture capital firm focusing primarily on technology start-ups and social impact investor Goodwell Investments. Other existing investors, such as TLCom Capital, Odey Asset Management LP, and tech mogul Kima Ventures, also participated in the Series C funding round.
In essence, this Series C funding will enable Copia Global to further scale its proprietary logistics platform to reach unbanked customers living in Africa’s most remote locations. This marks the fourth time that Copia Global has received investment funding; it had previously raised $4.6 million Series A and B through several local and international investors and grants from various organisations, including USAID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
This latest financing will help fund the development of mobile-first e-commerce services for customers and merchants across Africa, emphasising phone-based credit systems, which are increasingly popular among its unbanked customer base. In addition, the new funds will enable Copia Global to leverage its extensive network of merchants within East Africa to onboard them onto its e-commerce platform, extending its reach to customers that have yet to be served by similar services due to geographic constraints. The company also plans to use the new influx of funds to expand its presence in West African countries such as Nigeria in 2019.
Use of the funds
Series C funding typically comes after a company has proven product-market fit. Kenya-based Copia Global has done just that, successfully building out its mobile e-commerce service from the ground up. The funds raised from Series C will be used to drive new customer acquisition and ramp up their logistics operations.
Specifically, Copia plans to use this capital for product development, talent acquisition and retention, ad spending on digital platforms such as Google and Facebook, creating a debt structure for their supply chain partners, expanding into other markets in Africa such as Ghana and Tanzania, expanding into different facets of e-commerce like health products, creating an artificial intelligence platform to power their logistics system. Additionally, they plan to increase the size of their fleet with new warehouses and features like integration with popular payment systems in Africa, such as M-Pesa.
All these will enable Copia Global to serve its unbanked customers in Africa better while also growing its user base and gaining greater efficiencies in its operations.
Impact of the funding
By raising a $50M Series C, Kenya-based Copia Global is expanding its proprietary logistics technology for its mobile-first e-commerce service aimed at unbanked African customers. This funding will enable the company to deliver products across multiple African countries and possibly beyond.
The raise could bring about a significant impact on unbanked customers in Africa. Primarily, it will increase access to essential products and services that otherwise may not be available due to a lack of financial access. Furthermore, this funding will offer greater financial inclusion by allowing more customers to buy the things they need without having to obtain a bank account or access capital from other sources, such as family members. With increased access comes increased economic opportunity, expected to result in higher incomes and greater purchasing power among individuals and businesses.
Moreover, this could lead to further investment in technologies designed for African markets as investors become more confident of e-commerce companies’ prospects in this region. The additional resources will make it easier for Copia Global to leverage its proprietary international shipping technology with existing systems from transportation service providers like Kenya’s Posta Kenya Courier & Logistics (PKCL). This integration can make deliveries more efficient and cost-effective without sacrificing safety or security.
Ultimately, the rise of Copia Global stands as a testament that technological innovation can bring new economic opportunities even among consumers who have traditionally been left out due to a lack of access to traditional banking services. It remains an exciting time for African markets as the introduction of sound economic solutions promises bigger returns across different industries in the years ahead.
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