MumVillage, a Kenyan based maternal care and e-commerce website, has partnered with Nigeria’s BabyBliss to form Bliss Group. The new Business entity aims to become the Pan-African e-commerce platform for maternal and child care products.
Isis Nyongo-Madison launched MumsVillage in 2015 as an online community to support pregnant women and parents in Kenya on their motherhood and parenting journeys. Through media content distributed in its digital channels, MumsVillage provides quality information on parenting, pregnancy, healthcare and family-oriented events and services.
MumsVillage later participated in the Unilever DFID Transform, Alibaba eFounders Fellowship and Gray Matters Capital Calibrators digital accelerators program and launched the MumsVillageShop e-commerce arm last year. This was to leverage on the trust built from the digital community to provide a range of quality maternal and baby products from global brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Aveeno and Cussons among others.
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With the merger, MumsVillage will take advantage of BabyBliss Nigeria’s deep-rooted experience in e-commerce in Africa’s largest economy to expand its retail and distribution network across the continent.
BabyBliss Nigeria was founded in 2017and retails products for expectant mothers and their babies from local and international suppliers and manufacturers. Through a statement announcing the merger, the company said that it had recorded a 100 per cent growth rate in the past year and received funding from 440.ng, a venture capital firm founded by investor and Decagon founder, Chika Nwobi.
“I’m excited to lead this new entity into meeting the changing needs of African women and showing that they are indeed a market that cannot be ignored,” says Group CEO, Isis Nyong’o Madison.
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According to Madison, when MumsVillage launched five years ago, the goal was to not only provide access to quality parenting information and maternal/child care products to women in Kenya but also across the continent. The merger with BabyBliss offers MumsVillage the opportunity to scale beyond Kenya.
“Bliss Group will leverage on our networks, learnings and reach to convert the financial opportunity that exists into reality by delivering not just greater shareholder value for our investors but looking to build a real powerhouse with women at the helm,” she added.
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The Bliss Group Company will be co-headquartered in Kenya and Nigeria and in the immediate MumsVillage will be broadening its online inventory for its audience.
“MumsVillage has been on a mission to empower women to make informed decisions through quality information and products they discover online,” says Kenyan CEO, Millicent Muigai.
“It is exciting that through this merger, the reach and combined experience both entities provide will enable us to provide a great Pan-African experience to African pregnant women and mothers to make informed choices for their family’s well-being.”
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