Rocket Internet is merging five of its services into one e-commerce giant

Rocket Internet has made a major move ahead of its upcoming IPO in Germany after announcing that it will merge five of its global e-commerce services into one single business. Dafiti (Latin America), Jabong (India), Lamoda (Russia and CIS), Namshi (Middle East), and Zalora (Southeast Asia and Australia) will henceforth be known as GFG. The business will cover five continents, but Rocket Internet says that it will maintain separate inventories, business models and other tweaks within each market.

Rocket Internet, the German company best known for quickly churning out clones of successful online businesses, has announced that it will create an e-commerce giant by merging five of its existing regional e-commerce services. The new company, named GFG, will be made up of Dafiti (Latin America), Jabong (India), Lamoda (Russia & CIS), Namshi (Middle East), and Zalora (South East Asia & Australia), the company announced. The new business will have a global reach, although the regional sub-divisions will retain individual business models, inventories, branding, and so on, in order to best serve their respective regional markets. Put together, the five business have a combined valuation of €2.7 billion (approximately $3.5 billion), 4.6 million customers, and more than 7,000 employees. This is a strategic move as Rocket Internet has long been rumored to be to eyeing an IPO. Fellow German e-commerce site Zalando announced yesterday its plans to list on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange later this year. The two companies share Investment AB Kinnevik as an investor.