Powered by People, a wholesale e-commerce platform based in Kenya, with hubs in the Americas, Asia and Europe, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Susa Ventures and Golden Ventures to increase its transaction volume by growing the number of small brands using its B2B online marketplace to reach international buyers.
The equity funding was led by Susa Ventures and Golden Ventures, with participation from a number of investors, including Flexport Ventures, J Ventures and the founders of DraftKings, Fabric. The startup previously received a seed funding of $1.5 million in 2021, this financing round takes the total investment raised to $6.5 million.
“We are going to continue building up our technology…we have new vendor tools we are launching this quarter that will help streamline and automate things to help these businesses take on bigger orders and grow. We are also investing in building our senior leadership.”
~ Ella Peinovich, CEO and co-founder Powered by People
Ella Peinovich, Hedvig Alexander and Alison Phillips founded Powered by People in 2019 to enable emerging brands to access global markets. The mission was to create a marketplace for artisan traders, that would give them access to financing and business tools like the customer relationship management platform, which helps them manage and scale their businesses.
The fact that I can align my purpose with a business opportunity, and the fact that the artists we work with and the small independent retailers can realize their retail vision by sourcing products and narratives that is inspiring to customers, is extremely rewarding,”
~ Ella Peinovich, CEO and co-founder Powered by People
Powered by People is a mobile-first, distributed manufacturing system offering online tools, financing solutions, and a B2B marketplace to the small and mid-sized enterprises in the creative manufacturing and handmade sector.
The business recorded an annualized run rate of $15 million in total gross merchandise value by mid-March, and they expect to grow this to $25 million before the year ends. The startup has already given out $5.8 million in credit to traders and plans to issue an additional $10 million within this year.
Powered by People is also creating regional hubs to ensure quicker order deliveries, tapping the opportunities in drop-ship e-commerce. The investment would help the startup to further increase its transaction volume by growing the number of small brands using its B2B online marketplace to reach international buyers.