Global Circulate: Amex Ventures Funds Cross-Border African Commerce Platform Provider – WWD

Klasha, a cross-border African commerce platform provider based in San Francisco and Lagos, Nigeria, said it had raised an additional $2 million toward a total seed fund round worth $4.5 million. The funding round included American Express Ventures, which is the investment arm of American Express. This is the first investment of American Express Ventures in an African-focused start-up.

The round also included funding from Global Ventures; a VC firm focused on Africa and the Middle East. The other investors included Greycroft, Seedcamp, Plug and Play, Berrywood Capital and Breega.

Klasha was launched in May 2021 “by a team with combined experience at Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard, Shopify and Net-a-porter,” the company said, noting that over the past year, it signed up more than 1,700 merchants who processed more than 210,000 transactions.

Klasha said it would use the proceeds to expand into five more African countries this year and relaunch its consumer app, which was renamed KlashaCart. The app allows consumers to shop from participating international merchants online. “Klasha’s core checkout technology benefits consumers and merchants,” the company said. “It allows African consumers to pay international online merchants in African currencies and money methods at checkout and then have their goods shipped to the continent.”

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