DealDey, a Nigerian ecommerce website that aggregates discounted goods and services has raised $5 million in follow-on funding, TechCabal has learnt from reliable sources.
The startup’s second round of funding comes from its original investor, Kinnevik. The Swedish investment firm are also investors in iROKO, Rocket Internet, Konga, Millicom and more.
TechCabal is however not privy to the detailed terms of the deal. It is also not clear how much in total funding DealDey has raised to date — the initial amount of capital invested by Kinnevik is said to be anything from $1 million to $3 million, depending on who you ask.
Going by the information that has reached us, DealDey is probably looking to expand into other cities as well as doubling down on technology. An app is in the works for early 2015, it is said.
In 2012, the founding CEO, Sim Shagaya stepped down from day to day administration to go build the spinoff general merchandise behemoth that Konga is today, leaving the daily deals site in the hands of Sanaz Etebarian. A few months after Konga’s launch, DealDey executed an acqui-hire of 3stiches, a clothing retail site. Etop Ikpe, one of 3stiches’ co-founders is now co-CEO of DealDey, along with Kehinde Oriola.
Over the years, DealDey’s strategy has changed, almost as much as its leading executives. The site still describes itself as a daily deals website, but it’s looking and acting less like the Groupon-style model that was the startup fad of 2010 through 2013, and more like a regular ecommerce website. Whatever DealDey is doing seems to be working — as of now we don’t have numbers, but Alexa suggests that traffic to the site has been on an upward streak since April 2014 — it is currently number 16 in Nigeria, not too far away from Konga and Jumia.
TechCabal has reached out to DealDey and Kinnevik for comment.
