Former Jumia executives launch rival online commerce platform
Kapu CEO Sam Chappatte during the launch of a new e-commerce company, “Kapu” that allows customers in cities to shop & save on their weekly grocery basket. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NMG
Former Jumia Kenya executives have launched a new digital marketplace dubbed Kapu to rival their former employer after raising $8 million (Sh981 million) in funding from a pool of unnamed international investors.
The officials include former Jumia CEO Sam Chappatte and former chief operations officer Cyrus Onyiego, both of whom have now taken similar roles at Kapu. The pair left Jumia in January this year.
Others are Meera Dhanani who served as a chief marketing officer at Jumia and Stanislas Barth who was the head of offline Sales. The duo will be head of marketing and head of supply respectively at Kapu.
During Kapu official launch yesterday, Mr Chappatte said the project has been operational on a pilot basis since the start of the year and has thus far secured one million customer orders working with over 1,500 agents countrywide.
“Our goal at Kapu is to build the most relevant model of e-commerce for the majority of urban consumers in Africa. By working with existing community groups and local entrepreneurs, we believe we can play a part in reducing the cost of goods and unlocking opportunities for millions of people,” said Chappatte.
Through the platform, consumers will be able to purchase a variety of goods ranging from fresh farm produce, toiletries, cooking oil, sugar, and flour among others. Kapu’s prices are lower on some products compared to major supermarkets.
To make commercial sense, Kapu capitalises on economies of scale by aggregating several deliveries to each agent drop.
They also enter into discount arrangements with suppliers based on the volume of stock bought.
Describing itself as a business-to-consumer (B2C) operator, Kapu says it sources its trade goods directly from farm producers and manufacturers, saying this minimises logistics costs and wastage hence the possibility of sustainably passing on the savings to their customers.
The retailer has a physical store domiciled within the Nairobi Omega Warehouses in Baba Dogo area.
In their operational model, orders placed before 9 pm are delivered for free the next day to a local agent and payment is made on delivery.
Orders placed later than the stipulated time are delivered on the third day.
Kapu revealed that their agents earn a monthly commission of between Sh2,000 and Sh6,000.
The platform joins the growing list of startups that are digitising the informal retail sector in Kenya, to enable both individual and group buying of food supplies through agents and online apps.
