Last year, TradeDepot which connects consumer goods brands to thousands of retailers, raised $110 million in its Series B financing round led by the International Financial Corporation (IFC). The startup also unleashed a buy-now-pay-later option that’d let retailers make orders for goods and pay for them on a later date. TradeDepot which is present in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa mentioned that it was vying for an African expansion. It also mentioned looking at strengthening its position in its existing markets.
Now TradeDepot has acquired Green Lion, its Ghanaian rival at an undisclosed amount. The acquisition which is hugely strategic will help the startup to not only strengthen its position in Ghana but also to grow its operations in the country. TradeDepot wants to be the numero uno when it comes to connecting micro-retailers with distributors and manufacturers of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs).
Green Lion was founded in 2018 by Jorge de Rojas and Enrique Moreno de la Cova. It built fintech solutions that provided financing for traders, has a digital ledger called Wsyr that provided retailers with a digitalized method of monitoring stock and bookkeeping. By numbers, Green Lion is one of Ghana’s largest B2B e-commerce platforms. The fintech boasts of 29,854 transactions with 4,404 customers since its inception. It is present in four countries as of September last year and was planning to enter more before the acquisition. It was also looking at increasing its customers to 15,000 by the end of this year.
The acquisition will see a full take-over of Green Lion’s assets, partnerships and/or relationships, employees, etc. Prior to the acquisition, TradeDepot operated only in Ghana’s capital city Accra, but now through Green Lion, it will be “everywhere”.
Now, TradeDepot will continue to build on Green Lion’s foundation – what Green Lion has achieved, its technology, logistics network, data, etc. Users of Green Lion’s platform will now benefit a whole lot such as TradeDepot BNPL offering access via the startup’s ShopTopUp platform.
According to Onyekachi Izukanne, co-founder and CEO of TradeDepot, “Ghana represents a significant market for consumer goods in Africa and we are excited to bring the Green Lion team onboard to drive growth and prosperity for more retailers and distributors in the country. We look forward to deepening our relationship with the market and working with more partners to maximize the opportunities that abound in Ghana and beyond”.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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