Kenyan fashion e-commerce startup ShopZetu is set to add beauty and home décor categories to its portfolio, in response to the growing needs of the young and style-conscious women in Africa. This is as it currently scales regionally over the next few months while working to attract international fashion brands, and more than triple the number of vendors on its platform to 1,000.
Altum Lab, the Chilean AI startup, has closed a deal with the World Seed Bank to develop a model that predicts seed germination to facilitate intelligent storage and management, opening up new opportunities in the agricultural industry. Through Bruna, its platform specializing in advanced technological services to solve common industrial problems, the company will create a prediction that assesses the probability of seed germination while harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to drive sustainable agriculture and strengthen food security.
The Fashion Kingdom (TFK), the leading curated fashion marketplace in Egypt, has acquired direct-to-consumer (D2C) fashion brand Opio to create a powerhouse fashion group. A marketplace offering access to fashion, beauty and home accessories, with 360 value proposition for brands, TFK was launched in July 2020 and raised a US$2.6 million seed round in August 2022, to accelerate its growth.
With CDP vendors increasing their workforces by 3.4% in six months, compared with an average of 0.2% each six months over the prior two years, the sector seems to be growing again, according to our own semi-annual industry update. There is much talk of composable CDPs but they still employ no more than 5% of the sector workforce. What is a clear trend is the acquisition of independent CDPs by vendors interested in adding a CDP to a larger system (usually an activation system).