After months of speculative language and continuous waiting, Jumia has finally initiated its Initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on 12th April, 2019.
This is a huge leap forward for a company already considered to be Africa’s first unicorn in 2016 — valuing at more than $1 billion – after it raised $326-million from investors who included US investment bank Goldman Sachs, MTN, Rocket Internet and AXA Insurance .
Founded in 2012 in Nigeria by Frenchmen Jérémy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, Jumia currently operates across 14 countries and the Jumia employees in each of these countries rang bells at the same time to mark the listing.
Let’s take a look at the details of the Jumia IPO.
First African tech company on the NYSE
The IPO launch means that Jumia is the first internet startup built in Africa to be listed on the NYSE, where it will be trading under the name JMIA. The company also joins a number of other African companies listed on an American stock exchange.
Jumia is raising $196-million
The company has sold 13.5-million American Depositary Shares at a price of $14.50 each. Jumia’s Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing indicates that the IPO was led by Berenberg, Citigroup, RBC Capital Markets, and Morgan Stanley.
Jumia isn’t profitable yet
In the company’s IPO prospectus, a loss of over $195-million (on revenue of $149-million) in 2018 is reported, following another loss of about $187-million (on revenue of about $106-million) reported in 2017. Jumia indicated that they had accumulated losses of €862-million as of December 31, 2018.
But even while the platform isn’t profitable, sales were recorded to increase by almost 40 percent last year to $147.3 million.
