Kenyan fashion retail platform raises funding
ShopZetu, the fashion technology start-up founded by Marvin Kiragu and Wandia Gichuru, announced the successful closure of its $1 million pre-seed funding round. The round was led by Chui Ventures, with participation from Launch Africa, Roselake Ventures, Logos Ventures, and angel investors, including Kendall Tang (CEO, RT Knits), Ben Munoz (co-founder and CEO, Nadine West), Sumit Bhasin (SVP global innovation and product development, Estee Lauder Inc), Patricia Ithau (CEO, WPP Scangroup) and Peter Njonjo (co-founder and CEO, Twiga Foods).
Founded in 2021, ShopZetu aims to establish itself as Africa’s most prominent fashion and lifestyle e-commerce company. Africa’s fashion retail industry is massively fragmented, with numerous small brands and fashion vendors serving customers offline in stalls and through social media platforms. ShopZetu provides a platform to support online fashion retail for the various vendors through a centralised e-commerce marketplace as well as content creation, digital marketing, warehousing and last-mile delivery.
Over the past two years, ShopZetu has served over 30,000 customers and sold more than 100,000 products. The platform currently hosts over 300 vendors offering a diverse range of over 20,000 products.
”We are excited to be leading the charge in online fashion and lifestyle retail,” said Marvin Kiragu, CEO of ShopZetu. ”The future of e-commerce in Africa will be driven by content, community, and hyper-personalisation through recent advances in artificial intelligence.”
Joyce-Ann Wainaina, managing partner of Chui Ventures stated, ”We believe in ShopZetu’s vision to transform Africa’s fashion e-commerce landscape. The team’s commitment to building a scalable marketplace, coupled with their impressive traction, positions ShopZetu as a game-changer in the industry. We are excited to support their growth and contribute to their success.”