Earlier today, Lipa Later announced its official acquisition of ecommerce platform, SkyGarden. SkyGraden has been in financial crisis having run out of money and would have gone under were it not for the acquisition by Lipa Later.
According to Eric Muli, LIPA Later CEO, they have fully acquired SkyGarden and its team who now work from Lipa Later’s offices. The two companies will continue working independently but there will be some overlap in some areas. SkyGarden will run as it has before just with a new owner. The acquisition cost is still unknown but Lipa Later may share those details as well as the plans it has for SkyGarden in the coming weeks.
Lipa Later and SkyGarden have partnered before to extend Lipa Later’s Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services to SkyGarden customers. The acquisition now means that this can be further strengthened as the two are under one umbrella.
Eric Muli also stated that Lipa Later has spent the last few years building its BNPL platform allowing customers to buy goods and pay in monthly installments. He also said that Lipa Later has connected more businesses to consumers and consumers to essential purchases. SkyGarden on its part has worked with over 10,000 merchants ever since it started operations.
“Guided by our objective to empower African businesses and consumers to do more by enabling e-commerce, financial inclusion and shopping all on one centralized and fully integrated platform, our plan has always been to venture into e-commerce with unique value propositions for our consumers. SkyGarden has done an incredible job and checks all those boxes. Lipa Later is no stranger to the e-commerce industry, having already established a strong presence in the online payment and finance sectors. This acquisition has greatly accelerated our plans of redefining the shopping experience for consumers,” he said.
Mr. Muli further stated that they have a strategy that is different from the initial one SkyGarden had. This is key as the initial plan is what led the ecommerce platform to run out of money and Lipa Later would not want to go through the same things.
Lipa Later also comes with its own machinery to support SkyGarden with a lot of resources that the platform may not have had access to before. This should help with growth and hopeful profitability. Lipa later is aware that SkyGarden has spent over $6 million to operate in Kenya but has not shared the amount it is investing in SkyGarden as of now but may be willing to spend as much as that amount on the platform.
Expansion to other countries
Through this partnership, Lipa Later also hinted at plans to expand SkyGarden to other countries it currently operates in. This is the long term strategy for LipaLater which currently operates in 6 countries across the continent.
Even before its expansion to other countries, Lipa Later wants to focus on the logistics and speed of movement of goods as a way of differentiating its platform from other players. Payments and seamless processes for both merchants and consumers are also key to the growth of SkyGarden moving forward. These are just some of the key points Lipa Later is looking at as it rekindles SkyGarden’s spark.
Read: Lipa Later Confirms acquisition of struggling e-commerce platform, SkyGarden
