Nigeria’s B2B e-commerce fintech TradeDepot raises $110m
TradeDepot, a B2B e-commerce and embedded finance platform based in Nigeria, has raised $110 million in an equity and debt funding round. The company says the funds will support the delivery of buy now, pay later (BNPL) services to five million SME retailers across Africa.
TradeDepot raises $110m in equity and debt funding
The Series B equity round was led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC, a member of the World Bank Group) with participation from Novastar, Sahel Capital, CDC Group and Endeavor Catalyst, as well as existing investors Partech and MSA Capital.
The debt funding was led by Arcadia Funds.
Founded in 2016, TradeDepot operates in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa, and plots further expansion across the continent.
“Africa’s SME retailers generate $1 trillion in sales annually and contribute $2.6 trillion to the continent’s nominal GDP,” it says, “but a fragmented distribution network and lack of access to financing has led to inefficiencies in distribution and many missed opportunities across the value chain.”
Via its ShopTopUp platform, the company offers a range of consumer goods to SME retailers within its network and provides credit lines to enable these retailers to access inventory and pay in instalments as they sell on to their own customers.
TradeDepot has also built a proprietary risk scoring engine that uses retailers’ purchase history, previous repayment performance and other related data points to predict their creditworthiness.
