When Jumia listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019, it felt like a milestone. Africa's first tech unicorn, backed by Goldman Sachs and Rocket Internet, operating across fourteen markets. The story seemed to write itself: the continent's digital future had arrived, and here was the proof.
A few years later, Jumia was retreating from several markets and struggling to explain, quarter after quarter, why a billion dollars in losses hadn’t produced a path to profitability. The company that was supposed to be Africa’s Amazon had discovered s
