Afrigather The relaunch arrives one 12 months after Lipa Later introduced it was inquisitive about rejuvenating Sky.Backyard’s e-commerce enterprise.
Sky.Garden, a Kenyan e-commerce platform based in 2017, has relaunched its enterprise one 12 months after it was acquired by the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform, Lipa Later. In accordance with a press release from Lipa Later, Sky Backyard’s enterprise has been restructured after buying it for KES 250 million ($1.6 million per the present trade price).
Lipa Later has confirmed to TechCabal {that a} part of former Sky.Backyard’s 50 staff will proceed working for the platform, though others have since left the corporate. It now has a complete of 60 workers, and 40 extra who’re not directly related to the agency.
“Ever because the acquisition, we’ve been present process a restructuring.” Juliet Wanjiru, head of e-commerce at Sky.Backyard advised TechCabal. “Whereas we aimed to retain all workers, others pursued completely different alternatives.”
Earlier than Sky.Backyard’s enterprise began struggling as a consequence of low capital to run operations, it had raised $4 million in a Collection A spherical in 2021. Previous to Lipa Later’s acquisition in November 2022, it had sealed a $600,000 deal, including as much as $5.2 million of general funds raised from traders. Its former managing director, Martin Majlund, who left the corporate on the peak of its struggles, revealed that 2022 was a difficult 12 months for operating B2C in East Africa, therefore the decision for new investment.
The decision for a brand new investor was answered by Lipa Later. Lipa Later has now launched new options and merchandise onto the platform “far past the boundaries of standard on-line retail”. Clients will be capable to purchase merchandise on credit score utilizing Lipa Later’s BNPL product. There may be additionally a brand new product named Sky.Logistics, which is able to deal with deliveries to clients. Retailers may also be capable to entry financing and transaction monitoring utilizing Sky.Pockets.
Recall that in September this 12 months, Lipa Later was within the information over a $1.2 million crowdfunding programme. On the time, the corporate had mentioned it was not crowdfunding out of necessity. “We not too long ago raised a major quantity of debt funding; we’ve satisfactory funding,” Eric Muli, the founder and CEO of LipaLater, advised TechCabal. “This public crowdfund is to boost fairness investments to enhance our debt-to-equity ratio,”
Sky.Backyard will run operations independently, similar to Lipa Later. Nevertheless, the 2 entities are beneath the Lipa Later Group “We’ve areas of synergy akin to we provide Lipa Later as a fee possibility on Sky.Backyard,” Wanjiru advised TechCabal.
