Nigeria's Klasha Secures Extra $2.1M to Bolster its cross-border Commerce
Klasha, a Lagos and San Francisco-based startup that provides multiple products for the African cross-border commerce space, has successfully secured $2.1 million from AMEX Ventures, the strategic investment group of American Express, and Global Ventures, a MENA-focused VC co-led investment, to round out its $4.5 million seed round.
Greycroft, Seedcamp, Plug and Play, Berrywood Capital, and Breega were among the international investors who participated in the round.
Klasha was founded three years ago and launched in 2021, it is tapping into Africa’s cross-border space in a vast e-commerce market worth over $25 billion. The startup is solving payment issues African merchants and consumers face when they pay for products online via different payment methods.
It’s also helping merchants globally to sell online to Africans and receive payments in local African currencies while enjoying super fast last-mile delivery to consumers across the continent.
Klasha has a suite of business- and consumer-facing products connected via one API. KlashaCheckout allows merchants outside Africa to collect payments from six countries on the continent, ( Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, and Kenya) and get paid in G20 currencies like dollars, pounds, or euros. KlashaWire allows small merchants in these six countries to pay their suppliers in their local currencies.
It also allows merchants all over the world to sell online to Africans and accept payments in local African currencies, all while providing super-fast last-mile delivery to customers all over the continent.
According to the firm, suppliers receive payments in their preferred currency in three days. Merchants who do not have storefronts to accept payments can share links with customers via email or social media using Payment Links.
The startup claims to have over 45,000 customers, a 4x increase from last October, with merchant acquisitions increasing by 20% month on month and transaction volume increasing by 17.5 percent. Over 210,000 transactions from over 1,700 merchants have been processed by Klasha. It makes money from sales commissions and subscriptions paid by merchants to use the analytics platform.
The Chief Executive Officer of Klasha, Jessica Anuna said “The core mission of Klasha is to streamline cross border commerce from Africa to the rest of the world. And in turn, give the rest of the world access to African consumers on the ground who want and need these goods globally.”
“The biggest product development is this app allowing these consumers to shop from selected stores like Boohoo.com, pay using their Klasha wallet, which you can fund by multiple different African currencies and get delivered to their door, ” she added.
One of the startup’s products, KlashaWire, allows small merchants in the six markets where it currently operates to pay suppliers in their local currencies, and these suppliers can receive payments in their dominant currency within three days. Payment Links, a third product, enables merchants without storefronts to accept payments and share links with customers via email or social media.
Klasha’s consumer product allowed users in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya to create virtual cards, fund them with their local currencies, and send and receive money last year. Jessica Anuna, the company’s founder, announced that Klasha would redesign the app to allow retailers like ASOS, Zara, and H&M to accept payments from African customers.
The app, known as KlashaCart, will allow consumers to shop from various retailers using naira and have their purchases delivered within 7-14 days via Klasha’s logistics arm. The platform will be available in Kenya within the next few months.
Matt Sueoka, the global head of Amex Ventures, in a statement said, “We look forward to seeing the company’s innovative solutions help open up commerce for African consumers and facilitate cross-border payments. Klasha has the potential to drive spending by making payments simpler in emerging markets and allows merchants to scale within the continent and abroad.”