CoinAfrique, the most downloaded classifieds app in French-speaking Africa, aims to exceed 10 million monthly users by 2022.
The classifieds ads platform CoinAfrique has raised € 2.5 million euros from several investors, thereby affirming its ambition to become the leader in terms of mobile audience in francophone Africa. New shareholders include Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P), an impact investment funds manager dedicated to small and medium-sized businesses in sub-Saharan Africa, and a pool of investors represented by French Partners and Mercure International, a leading retailer in French-speaking Africa.
CoinAfrique becomes the first classifieds focused start-up in French-speaking Africa to raise € 2.5 million, highlighting its ability to develop its model on a larger scale and to reach a critical users mass. In 2017, CoinAfrique has become the most downloaded mobile application for classified ads in French-speaking Africa (more than 600,000 downloads for almost 5 million sessions opened since its launch). Today, CoinAfrique has more than 150,000 active members in 16 African countries each month. In November, it was the only French start-up among the 20 selected to participate in XL Africa, the start-up acceleration program initiated by the World Bank.
This fundraising is part of a generally favorable trend for start-ups in Africa. According to venture capital fund Partech Ventures, African start-ups raised $ 560 million in 2017, up from $ 368.8 million in 2016, a 53% year-on-year growth. There are also more transactions (128 in total), as well as a wider geographical distribution. In other emerging economies, classified ads apps are growing more popular, such as Carousell, a Singapore based start-up that recently raised $ 70 million.
Matthias Papet and Eric Genêtre, co-founders of CoinAfrique said: “The successful fundraising confirms our intuition that CoinAfrique has positioned itself on a booming market. Above all, this fundraising will allow us to accelerate our activities on our existing markets, to serve new countries and to develop a better user experience, that is even closer to the needs of our community of buyers and sellers. We aim to exceed 10 million monthly users by 2022.”
Jean-Michel Severino, Investisseurs & Partenaires’ President said: “CoinAfrique is a promising company with huge growth potential, particularly in French-speaking West Africa. Indeed, CoinAfrique offers an innovative classifieds offer, based on the growing use of new technologies and adapted to the consumption habits of young people, a rapidly expanding age group. We are happy to support the team of CoinAfrique in this new stage of its development so as to maximize its impact on small urban business, be it in terms of sales growth, job creation or support to the formalization of African small businesses.”
About CoinAfrique
Launched in May 2015, CoinAfrique is the leader in mobile classifieds in French-speaking Africa. Thanks to its mobile app (available on Google Playstore and iOS) and its website, CoinAfrique connects the largest community of online sellers and buyers (more than 150,000 active users) in 16 African countries.
CoinAfrique has established its hub in Dakar (Senegal) and has offices in Cotonou (Benin), Lome (Togo), Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo) since the beginning of April.
For more information, visit www.coinafrique.com
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