The investment was made through Rebel Seed’s Edge Fund, which targets early-stage founders in Africa’s Secondary Cities with ticket sizes ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.

Shoptreo, co-founded by Emmanuel Tochukwu Jacobs and George Uteh, is unlocking value in informal markets and underserved production ecosystems like the Aba Artisanal Leather Cluster—one of Africa’s largest hubs for handcrafted leather goods—by equipping artisans with digital storefronts, integrated logistics, payments, and inventory tools to efficiently meet global demand.

Beyond marketplace support, it offers strategic inventory financing to trusted distributors and bulk buyers, enabling them to scale, fulfill large orders, and overcome cash flow bottlenecks.

By blending fintech innovation with grassroots manufacturing, Shoptreo is shaping the future of African commerce.

Emeka Okoye, managing partner at Rebel Seed Capital, said:

“The Aba Artisanal Leather Clusters represent a major economic and commercial opportunity which, if properly harnessed through digital transformation, will unlock wealth and prosperity at an insane level. The Shoptreo team has demonstrated enough hunger, drive, and execution, which we believe are the right combination of attributes required to win.”

George Uteh, Founder and CEO of Shoptreo, added:

“Rebel Seed Capital’s vision aligns with Shoptreo’s goal of driving value at underrepresented segments. The funding will help us continue our expansion drive while taking Aba Leather products global.”

With this investment, Shoptreo plans to double down on product development, onboard hundreds of new artisans, and deepen integration with logistics and financial service providers to ensure seamless order fulfillment and cross-border commerce.

A share of the investment will also go into expanding their financial retail services—particularly inventory financing—to equip distributors and bulk buyers with the capital to scale purchases of Made-in-Aba products, boosting liquidity and accelerating growth across Africa’s informal manufacturing sector.

Rebel Seed Capital

• Rebel Seed Capital is a pre-seed venture capital firm backing bold founders solving critical challenges in Africa’s Secondary Cities.

Through its Edge Fund, Rebel Seed invests between $10,000 and $50,000 in high-potential ventures that are often overlooked by mainstream investors.

Shoptreo

• Shoptreo is a commerce enablement platform helping artisans and micro-businesses create digital storefronts, manage inventory, accept payments, and fulfill orders across local and global markets.

In addition, Shoptreo offers inventory financing to trusted distributors and bulk buyers—providing them with the capital needed to stock up on locally made products and scale their operations.

Shoptreo is on a mission to bridge Africa’s informal markets with the digital economy, driving growth through technology and inclusive financial services.

Tagged ‘Investors’ Mixer’, #StartupSouth is partnering with TechQuest STEM Academy, a nonprofit organization that provides education technology content, resources and tools for the delivery of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics), ICT and Digital literacy programs to young Africans at scale.

This Networking Session for early stage startup investors & founders will hold on as follows:

Date: Monday, 12 June

Time: 4 PM (WAT)

Venue: TechQuest Hub -Crestsage’s Place (Map view, #3 Dr Ahmid Balogun Street, Recreation Square, Lekki, Lagos.

According to Disrupt Africa, Africa’s “big four” startup ecosystems – Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya – raked in a combined US$1,977,910,000 over the course of the year, 92.1 per cent of the overall total in 2021.

In all, 161 Nigerian startups raised a huge combined total of US$903,680,000.  That total funding figure is up 501 per cent on the previous year, when Nigeria ranked second on the continent with its combined total of US$150,358,000.

This year, no other country came close to Nigeria, and it contributes a whopping 42.1 per cent of total funding secured in Africa.

Therefore, startup founders and entrepreneurs across Africa are attracting huge funds from investors but they have to worry about informality and fragmentation limiting the availability and affordability of products and services.

This report shows that it could also be an opportunity for both players to strategize and adopt a new business model to take advantage of the opportunity.

Thus, the ‘Investors’ Mixer’ session is open for professionals who are interested in learning about opportunities in the African Innovation Ecosystem.

“There will be presentations on Angel Investing, Venture Capital, Startup Founding and Syndication”, Uche Aniche, the lead convener, said.

The session powered by #StartupSouth, TechQuest, SSEAN & Rebel Seed Capital, is strictly by Invitation.

RSVP here 

According to Uche Aniche, the Convener of #StartupSouth, the Oil & Gas Early Stage Startup Investing Masterclass will help professionals in the Oil & Gas sector make sense of the African Innovation Ecosystem.

“#StartupSouth is teaming up with Rebel Seed Capital – (emerging cities focused venture capital firm), SSE Angel Network, African Business Angel Network, Dream VC, TechCabal Insights and TVC Labs to assemble the best minds in the space from across the globe to discuss everything Venture Capital, Angel Investment, African Innovation Ecosystem & more”, he said.

According to Aniche, as the African Startup Ecosystem is getting more interesting, a major hard to ignore trend is the emergence of Startup Investing as alternative asset classes “and this is opening up opportunities for professionals across all sectors to participate as investors or enablers through corporate Innovation”.

However, there are currently few structured ways for these Professionals to learn about the space.

In 2021, African Startups raised $4.3 Billion dollars in investment. Nigeria Startups got roughly $2 Billion and this  came from mostly external VC and Angel investors.

In 2021 also, investors in Paystack – a Nigerian Payment processor – made around 20x their initial investment (within 5 years) when the company sold to Stripe – a US payment processor.

Flutterwave and Andela achieved Unicorn Status (Companies valued at over $1 Billion) and KudaBank – a new digital challenger bank –  currently has over $500 Million in valuation, multiplying early investors’ money by several factors already.

The Session is planned to share information an Oil & Gas professional needs to operate in the Innovation space while avoiding pitfalls of starting out as an Investor or an Innovator.

Registration and Participation

The Masterclass will be held in three different cities –  Lagos: 26th & 27th February, 2022, Port Harcourt: 5th & 6th March, 2022, Enugu: 12th & 13th March, 2022.

Direct Registration link is HERE.

Note that participants in the in-person Session will be checked into an exclusive hotel for the duration of the Session.