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Vunderkind
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Reports from Tech Moran say that Jumia’s co-founder and MD has resigned.
Tunde Kehinde founded Jumia with his Ghanaian business partner, Raphael Afaedor in 2012. The two men both graduated from Harvard School of Business.
Since the founding of Jumia, the online retail store now sells to more than 500,000 shoppers monthly. It was launched from funds supplied by Rocket Internet and has since raised more than $75 million. Tunde Kehinde and Raphael Afaedor have since then built up the number of staff on their payroll to 600 and expanded Jumia across Africa to Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Ivory Coast and South Africa.
Kehinde worked at Diageo in the UK before co-founding Jumia, while Raphael was working with Notore Chemical Industries. Tunde’s first try at online entrepreneurship was when he founded Bandeka.com, an African professionals’ dating site which was exclusively for invited members.
History
Kehinde and Raphael first launched Jumia as Kasuwa, with the vision of helping Lagosians and Nigerians in general shop easier without having to face road traffic. After a few days of business in June 2012, Kasuwa got funding from Rocket Internet, and this helped them expand in areas of personnel, concepts and technology.
A few legal issues led to their changing the name from Kasuwa to Jumia and by September, 2012, Jumia merged with the online fashion store known as Sabunta, which was also funded by Rocket Internet.
Since then, Jumia has built a 12,000 sq. ft warehouse, opened up several pick-up points within the country and has generated funds from firms like J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Millicon.
Jumia Nigeria has been contacted concerning Tunde Kehinde’s resignation, but as at the time of writing this piece, they have been yet to respond.
