Konga named 2nd most innovative company in Africa

Lagos – Konga.com has received honors from Fast Company in its annual ranking of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies issue. Earning recognition as the 2ndof the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Africa, the publication called out Konga as “…having the potential to become an African e-commerce behemoth.”
This would be the second consecutive year that Konga would be recognized in this prestigious list; the company has risen up 3 spots on the list from the 5th position it held last year.
Only one other company had the distinction of being recognized on both the 2014 and 2015 lists—‘One Acre Fund’ from Kenya.Previous editions of the list have featured Tech giants such as Amazon and Twitter.
Most Innovative Companies is one of Fast Company’s most significant and highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. The magazine’s editors spend months gathering and analyzing data on companies around the globe. The resulting package honors leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in business and innovation. “Our goal is to illuminate the state of innovation as it exists right now within the rapidly changing global landscape,” said Fast Company editor Robert Safian.

Konga has revolutionized the landscape of trade in Nigeria today. Since opening up Konga Marketplace to small- and medium-size businesses via its SellerHQ marketplace in 2014, more than 10,000 traders have registered on the site. Konga, whose revenue grew 450% from 2013 to 2014, also launched its private logistics company KExpress last year, after its third-party courier partners were unable to cope with the thousands of daily orders the site generated. In its own version of Black Friday, dubbed “Yakata,” sales passed $3.5 million, up 1,440% from its inaugural year of 2013.
In the words of Sim Shagaya, the CEO of the company which was established just over 2 years ago; “At Konga we don’t want to be Goliath,” He says. “We think the future in Africa belongs to a small army of Davids.” Konga, in other words, doesn’t want to be just another e-commerce company, but to enable other businesses to do e-commerce. This ties very closely to the company’s mission and mantra, ‘To be the engine of trade and commerce in Africa’.