About $5 million has been raised by ANKA, an Ivorian SaaS e-commerce platform. The startup, which started 7 years ago, has raised approximately $13.5 million since it commenced.
The company raised about $6.2 million in January. The recent funds which is a combination of equity and debt is the pre-series extension round.
The startup’s plan is to solidify and innovate its services. The company plans to widen its operations in major markets like Nigeria, the U.S., and Kenya.
Initially, ANKA, formerly known as Afrikrea, operated a commercial hub for the continents-based and inspired fashion, accessories, arts and crafts. During this time, it has about 7,000 sellers across 47 African nations and many more buyers from 170 countries. However, from 2021, ANKA started to describe itself as a one-stop SaaS for international businesses.
Moulaye Taboure, CEO of ANKA, said that the renaming of the start-up to a SaaS e-commerce platform was triggered by the need to converge vendors’ focus from other channels like websites and social media, into one framework. This makes ANKA a bus stop for 3 types of customers; international shippers, online vendors who operate various channels and want to converge all transactions in one framework, and drop shippers looking to ship products internationally.
