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Audrey Djiya and Peter Nsaka always wanted to be founder .
Djiya ’s parent , grandparents , and great - grandparent were all enterpriser , and even as she took a consulting job after college , she kept an idea journal , documenting the problems she take in and the likely ways engineering science could help resolve them .
“ originate up watching class member move goods cross - border , the challenges around international Commerce Department really stuck with me , ” she told TechCrunch . She run low to Stanford Graduate School of Business , where she met Nsaka , who , the whole clip , pondered the same challenges she had . He was working as a package engineer at Shopify when he see Shopify ’s Black Friday global sales visualisation — a real - time map showing transactions worldwide — was principally relaying datum about every continent in the world but Africa .
“ This observation stuck with me , ” Nsaka told TechCrunch . “ The wanton path would have been to accept the established wisdom , to attribute this disparity to platform orientation or marketplace limitations . But engineering has teach me that assumptions are the enemy of innovation . ”
Djiya and Nsaka decided to team up andlaunch Zimi , a company that seeks to simplify ill-tempered - border commerce for merchants selling mark - border . Launched earlier this year , the company announced on Monday the raise of a $ 2 million seed roundled by Fearless Fundwith participation from Y Combinator and other fund and adviser . The problem they are trying to solve is a big one : brands shipping internationally face high shipping costs , long delivery times , and often rely on expensive distributors .
Zimi articulate its centering right now is merchandiser selling into the U.S. , trying to provide set fulfillment plaza for these international merchants that can help cut costs and developer times , all while helping them manage tax regulations , currency exchange , and compliance .
“ There are competitors that exist to work out dissimilar slice of the cross - border puzzle but what set us asunder from them is our holistic root , ” Nsaka , Zimi ’s CTO , tell . “ Everything a merchandiser necessitate to do to sell internationally can be done in one place on our platform . ”
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Djiya , the company ’s chief operating officer , said the fundraising was relational . Zimi met Fearless Fund after a military post about the company ’s launching went viral on Linkedin and the firm happened to see it . “ Which was perfect timing as we were just starting to conceive about fundraising , ” Djiya said . “ Our other investors we run into primarily through direct inbound as well . ”
Zimi attracted former customers by get lead lists and reaching out to marque directly on Instagram and by email . “ But our biggest client learning channel came from somewhere unexpected , ” Djiya said . “ Linkedin . ” The Djiya and Nsaka started sharing tale about what motivated them to build Zimi , keeping masses update on their journey on the way .
Soon , they said , international merchants started reaching out relating to the trouble Zimi was trying to solve .
“ What really work out was being hands - on with these early customers , ” Djiya continued . “ We personally help them set up their accounts , troubleshoot issue , and even packed some of their first orders myself . This gave us invaluable insights into their needs and help us refine our product . ”
Zimi will use the seed round to scale its US fulfilment electronic connection and build and apply AI model to make the merchant experience more unseamed . It ’s also launching a defrayal solution next year to help oneself external merchants receive requital in the US buck . Zimi is also search to expand its customer base and team .
“ We ’re see strong interest from brand across Europe , Asia , Latin America , and Africa who want to reach US client , and we require to flourish our infrastructure to brook them , ” Nsaka said . “ We ’ve only scratched the open of make believe global commerce truly accessible for international brand . ”
This small-arm was update to clarify Spotify ’s data visualizationand who else participated in the round .
