Mensa Brands, an Indian startup that acquires direct-to-consumer brands and helps them scale within the home market and overseas, has become a unicorn just six months after launching its business. Falcon Edge Capital led Mensa Brands’ $135 million Series B financing round that values the Indian startup at over $1 billion.
South African fintech company Ozow has raised a US$48 million Series B funding round to help it further develop its product offering and expand into new markets. Ozow which rebranded from i-Pay in April 2019 enables millions of merchants and consumers with easy, fast and secure alternative payment solutions, including QR codes, point of sale, e-commerce, e-billing and peer-to-peer payments.
Dubuy, an e-commerce platform by UAE global logistics provider DP World, has entered Kenya with plans to launch the business-to-business (B2B) site in more countries across the continent in the coming months. This marks Dubuy’s third market in East Africa, after setting up in Rwanda and unveiling plans to enter Ethiopia.
Just over half of consumers (54%) like to receive personalized messages because they show the consumers are known to the brand, plus they can be time savers. The rest (46%) find it at best unimportant, at worst creepy. Relevance far outstrips personalization when it comes to driving email opens (54% vs. 19%). Takeaway: treat each customer the way they prefer.