Kenyan fashion technology company that provides an e-commerce marketplace, infrastructure, and tools for fashion vendors, Shop Zetu, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to expand its portfolio and product offerings.
The funding round was led by Chui Ventures, with participation from Launch Africa.
The pre-seed round also saw participation from Angel Investors which include Ben Munoz, the co-founder and CEO of Nadine West, Patricia Ithau, Kendall Tang, the CEO of RT Knits; Sumit Bhasin of Estee Lauder Inc; the CEO of WPP Scangroup, and Peter Njonjo, the co-founder and CEO of Twiga Foods.
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In its plan to become a one-stop shop, Shop Zetu intends to use the funds raised to increase its offerings in skincare, Beauty, home decor, and hair categories.
This is because the startup is currently scaling regional delivery services in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, scaling beyond Kenya, over the next few months. It is also striving to recruit worldwide fashion companies and more than triple the number of sellers on its platform to 1,000.
Speaking on the funds raised Shop Zetu CEO Marvin Kiragu said,
“The goal is for ShopZetu to become the leading lifestyle platform. We are looking to expand our beauty, skincare, hair, and home décor offerings, which are all expressions of one’s identity. We want to become a one-stop shop.
“Our goal is to reduce the barriers to starting and scaling a fashion brand by leveraging ShopZetu’s reach and resources. We have good case studies of brands that were incubated and launched on ShopZetu before scaling online and establishing physical stores”.
Founded in December 2019, as a multi-brand, multi-vendor online fashion marketplace for affordable and trendy fashion, footwear, beauty, and accessory brands, Shop Zetu seeks to power online fashion retail in Africa.
The startup offers vendors a variety of services such as content, digital marketing, warehousing, last-mile delivery, and returns management.
Catering to Women, Men & Kids, the e-commerce platform is particularly excited to carry a large range of global as well as African-owned brands and is always looking for new brands to bring on its marketplace. Shop Zetu wants vendors selling on its platform, to be well-stocked with high-quality products, and offer inclusive sizing, among other things.
The online marketplace currently serves over 200 fashion and beauty brands and over 30,000 customers in Kenya. Also, it was reported to have sold over 100,000 products in the last two years, with a 400% rise in monthly orders since January 2021.
Notably, in April 2023, Shop Zetu announced its partnership with Safaricom to launch the Shop Zetu Mini App on the M-PESA Super App. The collaboration will enable more than 7 million M-PESA Super App customers to access and shop for women’s and men’s fashion from over 200 vendors within the e-commerce app.
The team at Shop Zetu will dispatch and deliver items to customers across Kenya within three days of placing an order, and customers will receive an SMS with a tracking link to monitor their shipment’s progress.
Also, M-PESA customers can access the Shop Zetu Mini App under the “Services” option on the M-PESA Super App. Through this partnership, Shop Zetu aims to help its vendors expand their market share by tapping into M-PESA’s Super App reach.
The e-commerce startup is building Africa’s largest fashion e-commerce company providing a marketplace connecting fashion vendors to customers across the continent. Its mission is to make fashion accessible across Africa.