There’s nothing like a niche language to create some kind of lock-in for a startup, and that’s exactly what happened with Gjirafa. Focusing exclusively on Albanian-speaking countries, Mergim Cahani, co-founder and CEO, started by developing an Albanian-language search engine, then literally digitized the country’s information, from bus schedules to a database local businesses and venues, and beyond.
Investors were attracted to this “emerging markets approach” and invested a $2 million Series A three years ago to “grow the Balkan Internet economy” by digitizing and indexing information in Albania and Kosovo, making Gjirafa the regional leader in research. e-commerce and online advertising.
Today, it claims 3 million unique users per month across its services and has raised a $6.7 million Series B from Rockaway Capital, which has supported the company since 2016. The new funding is intended to expand current products regionally.
The Series B will allow the company to double its current team (currently 70 full-time people and approximately 100 total part-time people), scale with existing products regionally, and provide other digital services that are not available in the region. .
Dušan Zábrodský, Investment Partner at Rockaway, said: “Mergim Cahani and his team confirmed our confidence and truly succeeded in building a showpiece of innovation for the entire region. With this very positive experience, we are committed to building a digital economy in the region and we are actively exploring new investment opportunities where we can use our knowledge to digitalize traditional industries.
He says Rockaway Group’s investment is strategic and long-term as they believe Gjirafa could become a comprehensive platform/network of additional services that would be used across the region.
Using the same strategy, Rockaway has already seen success in the DACH region, where it established an online travel group under the Invia Group brand, and in e-commerce through Mall Group, which operates in seven markets in the CEE region. These groups contributed significantly to Rockaway’s revenues, which crossed the €2 billion threshold in 2018.
Gjirafa has become the largest e-commerce player in the region, with a leading OTT product: GjirafaVideo and GjirafaStudio, equivalent to Hulu and Netflix; producing its own content, it currently consumes around 1 million minutes of video per day (and growing double digits on a monthly basis) and over 80 live channels online.
Gjirafa, Inc. is the fastest growing company in the region, and the growth is impressive with a CAGR of 314%. To put things in perspective: when GDP indicators are normalized for the Balkan region relative to those of the United States, revenue growth is equivalent to that of Google between 2001 and 2004 and continues on the same path.