Arabnet Arabnet

Jumia.com.eg, one of Africa’s fastest growing e-commerce retailers, announced today an investment by J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The investment will go towards strengthening Jumia’s current footprint, improving operations, and offering more brands, more categories and more services according to Head of Public Relations Lamis Dessouky. J.P. Morgan Asset Management also announced that it has invested in Zando, a leading online fashion retailer in South Africa.

Jumia, which launched in Egypt in the spring of 2012 with the support of the leading e-commerce ventures incubator Rocket Internet, currently operates in Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria, and plans to expand in additional countries in the coming months. The site offers a wide range of general merchandize categories including fashion apparel, shoes, electronics, mobile phones, books, toys and beauty products. “This investment confirms that Egypt will become a very large market in the very near future,” explains Lamis.

This is not the first time that global investment management firms have taken interest in the region’s ecommerce scene. MarkaVIP, a leading private sales club, had closed a Series A and B rounds of funding led by San Francisco based Lumia Capital and European venture firm Prime Ventures respectively in December of 2011 and April of 2012.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management Portfolio Manager Robert Cousin, who worked on the deal from New York, expressed his thrill with the deal and emphasized growth as a major factor in the investment. “We are excited to partner with Jumia and Zando as the companies continue to expand their e-commerce presence in Africa.” The investor will take a stake through a German holding company in an all cash-for-equity investment.