Copia Global Inc.

Copia is an African mobile commerce start-up company that was founded in 2013.

Copia is the first mobile commerce platform built to serve middle to low-income African consumers, regardless of their access to technology or geographic location. By leveraging a network of agents and tech-enabled logistics operations, Copia addresses a high growth market that formal retail and e-commerce cannot reach. The company is expanding its product range towards offering embedded financial services products to its customers and agents.

Copia started its operations in Kenya and has recently set-up another entity in Uganda, with further pan-African expansion plans.

Funding Objective
DEG will invest 7.5m USD equity investment in COPIA.
The funds will be used for growth of the core business, pan-Africa expansion and the implementation of financial services product offerings.

Reasons for financing
Copia is serving the needs of the rural population in two ways: delivery is free-of-charge and consumers can order and pickup goods at a nearby agent, with no more need for distance travel to get access to their quality products of choice, while at the same time shopping at fair and transparent prices. And agents are traditional small shop owners that can enhance their revenues through commissions.
The overall development quality of the transaction is very good due to strong job potential and local income generated as the company expands and gets profitable. By offering financial services products, the company also contributes to financial inclusion of the underserved.

DEG’s role is to provide early stage funding for the company to expand its operations and provide growth-capital to advance commerce infrastructure in rural areas of Africa. DEG will further support Copia with implementing their financial services offering.

The investment contributes to DEG´s strategy of supporting Tech-companies with an high impact in developing markets.