$6 M secured by Nigerian B2B marketplace Sabi in bridge round, extends to Kenya
Sabi, a B2B marketplace, has announced the completion of a $6 million bridge round to assist its rapid expansion in Nigeria and beyond.
Sabi, which was founded last year after spinning out of energy company Rensource, is working to enhance Africa’s informal trading sector by connecting merchants and resellers to tailored business tools and services that help them contact new consumers, increase cash flow, and optimise logistics.
Sabi’s category-agnostic platform is used by over 175,000 merchants to run their operations and conduct B2B transactions. On Sabi’s platform, merchants are transacting at a pace of more than US $100 million GMV per year, and the firm just launched in Kenya.
CRE Venture Capital led the startup’s US$6 million bridge round, which included investors such as Janngo Capital, Atlantica Ventures, and Waarde Capital. The financing follows a seed round earlier this year and will aid the company’s quick expansion as it looks to expand into other areas, including South Africa.
“We are excited to have closed this bridge round as Sabi continues to grow at an incredible pace. Our merchant users are taking advantage of every part of our platform, and the quality of the B2B partners we have brought onto the market is clear from the ever-increasing transaction volume,” said Anu Adasolum, chief executive officer (CEO) of Sabi.
CRE Venture Capital’s Pardon Makumbe, co-founder and managing partner, said his firm was happy to support Sabi’s continuing growth in Nigeria as well as its expansion into Kenya and South Africa.
“Sabi’s online/offline approach to serving informal businesses, combined with the quality of its platform and service provider curation, has clearly taken root in Nigeria. The company is on track to be one of the fastest-growing African companies of 2021 and is showing no signs of slowing down,” he said.
