The pan-African e-commerce platform ANKA is restoring its original consumer brand name, Afrikrea, as part of a corporate turnaround led by its new owner, Global Shop Group, following a period marked by insolvency, executive departures, and a major cybersecurity breach, the company told Launch Base Africa in a statement.
Marking the platform’s tenth anniversary, the enterprise is splitting its operations into two distinct offerings. Afrikrea will operate as the direct-to-consumer marketplace for African fashion, art, and craft, while the ANKA identity will be retained for its business-to-business software suite, which includes ANKA Pay and ANKA Ship.
The repositioning represents the first major strategic move under chief executive Matilda Ceesay, a Gambia-born former Nike and Boston Consulting Group strategist. Global Shop Group acquired ANKA’s assets in late 2025 out of judicial liquidation. Since its founding in 2016, Afrikrea reports facilitating over $30m in direct merchant sales, with women-led businesses accounting for 74 per cent of its vendor base across 94 countries.
The acquisition followed the sudden financial collapse of ANKA’s French parent company, MANSAART. MANSAART entered judicial recovery in July 2025 after declaring an inability to meet creditor obligations. Just 28 days later, French administrators converted the proceeding to judicial liquidation after concluding the business could not be restructured.
The forced asset sale wiped out equity held by institutional venture backers. ANKA had previously raised approximately $13.5m from investors including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Proparco, Bpifrance, and Saviu Ventures. The transaction also precipitated the departure of ANKA’s three co-founders, including long-time chief executive Moulaye Tabouré, who now leads the Ivory Coast operations of London-headquartered mobility fintech GoCab.
Global Shop Group’s takeover was complicated by a critical security incident during the transition. A 12.1 GB database containing records for 537,000 users was listed on cybercrime forums. Beyond personal identifiable information, the dump contained active authentication tokens, exposing accounts to session hijacking during the management transfer.
To achieve stability, Global Shop Group must restore merchant confidence and maintain cross-border shipping and payment infrastructure across fragmented regional markets, while attempting to drive international consumer demand under the revived Afrikrea brand.