British investment firm Baillie Gifford, once Jumia’s largest institutional backer, has officially exited its stake in the African e-commerce giant, marking the end of a six-year bet on what was once hailed as the “Amazon of Africa.”
The move was revealed in a May 2025 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), confirming the British investment firm has fully divested from the struggling company.
According to Nairamatrics, the exit reflects a sobering reality for Jumia, whose journey from IPO darling to penny stock has been marked by persistent losses, weak topline performance, and mounting operational headwinds.
Baillie Gifford had initially acquired 17.99 million shares in 2019, shortly after Jumia’s high-profile IPO, for an 11.45% stake. At its IPO peak, Jumia’s stock soared above $26. Today, it trades at around $2.50.
With more than 8.5 million American Depositary Shares (ADS), Baillie Gifford remained Jumia’s single largest institutional investor, holding more than twice the volume of the next major investor, D.E. Shaw, until its recent divestment.
The Newsmatrics reports that the investments is another setback for the firm that has faced mixed fortunes since becoming the first tech company operating in Africa to list on the NYSE in April 2019.
The online retailer gained investor confidence out of the gate, more than doubling its $14.95 opening share price after the IPO.
That lasted until May of the same years when Jumia’s stock came under attack from short-seller Andrew Left, whose firm Citron Research issued a report accusing the company of fraud. That prompted several securities-related lawsuits against Jumia.
Citron, led by notorious short seller, Andrew Left, had claimed that Jumia removed from its IPO documentation the fact that 41% of orders were returned, not delivered, or cancelled, and pointed to Jumia’s acknowledgment of the possibility of fraud among its Nigerian salesforce.
Jumia pushed back against the allegations.
Baillie Gifford’s departure is part of a wider trend of institutional retreat from Jumia. Global investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Citi, still appear on the shareholder registry, but all have reduced their stakes below the 5% disclosure threshold since 2021.
Beyond Jumia, several crossover funds such as BlackRock and Old Mutual have also scaled back their Africa exposure, though niche Africa-focused investors like Development Partners International (DPI) continue to allocate fresh capital across the continent.
Jumia’s leaner but smaller future
Amid the investor exodus, Jumia has adopted what it calls a “survival-first” strategy—cutting costs aggressively to preserve cash.
In 2024, headcount, marketing expenses, and fulfilment overheads were all trimmed by double digits.
This helped the company reduce operating losses by 10% to $66 million and slowed its quarterly cash burn to about $23 million.
However, the gains were short-lived. In Q1 2025, currency depreciation, especially in key markets like Egypt and Nigeria, drove operating losses back up to $18.7 million.
The cost cuts have also taken a toll on the company’s growth. Jumia’s full-year 2024 revenue fell by 10%, and Q1 2025 saw a further 26% plunge, due in part to its exit from South Africa and Tunisia and a major devaluation in Egypt that eroded previous gains.
Though management points to a 21% increase in physical goods orders as a sign of underlying demand, the growth is coming from a smaller base of markets and at lower basket sizes.
Without a fresh growth engine, Jumia risks becoming a structurally smaller business that continues to bleed cash.
