Middle East online marketplace Mini Exchange secures over $1 million in seed funding

By Hyacinth Mascarenhas

Mini Exchange, the MENA region’s first online marketplace for ‘everything mums & kids’ has closed its seed fundraising round of over $1 million.

Founder Sarah Jones, a Dubai-based British entrepreneur who quit her job at Deloitte to launch the online marketplace, received support from strategic angel investors from the Middle East and Europe.

According to Jones, the angel investors include “the CFO of one of the largest media companies in the region, a board member at a large educational group, a former board member at GAP who is now a professor at the London Business School, and someone from the banking sector.”

“A big focus of mine when raising money was to raise it from the right people,” said Jones. “The majority of the investors behind Mini Exchange are strategic angel investors from an array of industries – e-commerce, digital, social media, law, banking… the full spectrum. This was really important for me, to have investors that could bring value to the business and set us up well for our next round of funding.”

Starting out with a mere 500 items at the start of 2014, the company has rapidly grown into a thriving online marketplace offering over 30,000 items from more than 250 international brands from Havianas and Gingersnaps to Baby Jogger and Chicco due to effective marketing campaigns, a high active social media presence and a sophisticated technology platform that offers mums a hassle-free shopping experience.

Since its launch last year, Jones has made several big changes to the way Mini Exchange does business.

Initially, the platform allowed parents to buy and sell new or like-new products on the website. The goods were also stocked in warehouses before making their way to the customer. Jones has since cancelled that option.

Now, the platform operates a ‘drop ship’ model with items sourced directly from brands, retailers and distributors across the Middle East that allows all goods to go directly from seller to buyers. By integrating Mini Exchange with retailers’ warehouses, any products ordered will be picked up from the seller’s warehouse and delivered to the buyer, ensuring 100% authenticity.

The online marketplace has also expanded its product offering to include 120 additional product categories beyond items for kids including “Mums & Maternity,” making more brands accessible online in the Middle East.

“When Mini Exchange launched, I always foresaw it as being a tech platform,” said Jones. “I said to my team recently, that I would consider us to be successful on a daily basis if we didn’t see or touch any stock at all. I wanted to create a platform that allows brands to be online. That was my aim. There are people that want to buy in this market and people that want to sell. We’re trying to make this possible for brands not only in this region but also further afield.”

Focused on automation, speed and a more stream-lined process, Jones says her biggest draw while pitching to investors was believing in her own product.

“I live it, I dream about it, I think about it 24 hours a day,” said Jones. “I’m permanently trying to think of ways to optimize the processes, to hire and train better, to market better. I never stop. I think that passion was evident while I was pitching.”

Using the investment to expand her team and digital marketing campaigns, Jones says she aims to more than double the number of products on the site in the next 12 months, sign another 100 sellers to the site, launch a brand new mobile app and an Arabic version of the site to expand their marketing efforts even further.

“We have a long road ahead and a very exciting one,” said Jones. “As far as I’m concerned, this is just the beginning.”