Sabi African B2B Electronic Trading has established SABI about 20 % of the workforce (about 50 employees) because it wanders from its original platform that focuses on retail sale to double the growing business in commodity exports.
Workers’ demobilization, The company confirmed On Thursday, it is part of a broader restructuring aimed at harmonizing resources with what it describes as increasing to demand the goods in which it can be tracked, an area that started construction last year under a new vertical called Trace (Rails Technology to exchange African goods).
SABI was launched in Lagos in 2020, as a software platform that helps informal retailers to number inventory and sales amid Covid-19 disorders. Later expanded to a fast -moving consumer goods market (FMCG) with built -in financing, expansion via Nigeria and Kenya. By mid -2013, SABI got more than 300,000 merchants and $ 1 billion in the annual GMV.
This momentum helped him to secure a 38 million dollars of series B with a rating of $ 300 million.
But like many startups in the B2B e -commerce area in Africa, SABI faced structural winds: thin margins, capital intensity, and difficult economies of unity. Unlike competitors who were burned through capital, SABI maintained the asset light model and remained profitable. However, the transformation of the market was clear.
In March, the company launched a trace as a new business line, along with FMCG. The new header targets mineral and agricultural exports such as lithium, cobalt, tin and monetary crops, as global buyers demand increasing transparency, ESG compliance, and track.
Sabi says it now exports more than 20 thousand tons of these goods per month for buyers throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. It also launched operations in the United States and made great developments to support this expansion.
He said in a statement, “The next semester intervened, with a concentrated commitment to the trade of goods and followed it to international clients,” he said in a statement.
“We are multiplied by our work in seeing the largest number of requests, which were built on the basis of the powerful basis that we laid down since 2021 by supporting and growing African merchants. To agree with this momentum, we made a difficult decision to restructure parts of our team.”
The transition on a broader topic confirms: Given that unofficial trade platforms in Africa are looking for sustainability, SABI shows that developing into the plays of global trade infrastructure is possible. While this strategy provides higher margins and clearer paths for profitability, it can also lead to internal disposals as the SABI restructuring shows.
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