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Cape Town - A South African e-commerce start-up has won a massive investment from a UK firm as a vote of confidence in local innovation.
Parcelninja secured funding of R20m from UK-based C5 Holdings.
The local firm - which was founded by Justin Drennan, Ryan Drennan and Terence Murphy - is based in Gauteng and integrates into the e-commerce engines of online shops.
Parcelninja provides e-commerce services to many South African online shops, including, Superbalist, WantItAll, Grabit, DCStore, Juniva, Action Gear, Kids Emporium and Flook.
"E-commerce is growing in South Africa, and Parcelninja is there to assist online shopping companies by removing the most expensive and time consuming parts of the business," said Drennan.
Parcelninja plans to use the funding to expand in SA as e-commerce is forecast to grow locally with more people choosing to shop online.
Online appetite
The deal comes as a vote of confidence in the local industry battered by the shutting down of the kalahari which is being taken over by takealot.com.
Globally, e-commerce is expected to shift toward mobile devices as they have proved more convenient for shoppers.
Juniper Research reports that mobile e-commerce sales amounted to $1.5 trillion in 2013, and is projected to hit over $3.2 trillion by 2017.
In SA, the growth of online payments of virtual products has demonstrated that there is an appetite for online payments that is simple, yet secure to use.
"One part of that is building sites that are easy to use and highly visible to search engines; but an equally important part is making sure that the shopping cart and payment gateway are flexible and robust enough to meet all the client's needs as they grow," said Michael Richards of SiteMeUp Online Marketing.
