According to reports by TechCrunch, Jumia, pan-African e-Commerce company has filed for an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a move that is poised to make Jumia become the first African tech startup to list on a major global exchange.
The valuation, share price and timeline for public stock sales will be determined over the coming weeks.
This IPO filing was confirmed to TechCrunch by Jumia’s CEO, Sacha Poignonnec, who would not state an exact date for the actual IPO, but noted a 15-days period as the minimum SEC timeline for beginning sales activities. Jumia’s lead adviser for this listing is Morgan Stanley.
“You’ll see in the prospectus that last year Jumia had 4 million consumers in countries that cover the vast majority of Africa. We’re really focused on growing our existing business, leadership position, number of sellers and consumer adoption in those markets,” Poignonnec said.
Jumia has achieved tremendous milestones so far, including becoming the first African startup unicorn in 2016 after achieving a $1 Billion valuation following a $326 Million funding round that included previous investors telco MTN, AXA and Rocket Internet, as well as new investor Goldman Sachs.
Jumia is currently active in 14 countries, has 4 million active users with 81,000 active sellers, 13.4 million deliveries per year, about $148 Million as revenue in 2018 and a consolidated loss of about $975 Million since it was founded in Lagos, Nigeria in 2012.