Audrey Ziya and Peter Nsaka always wanted to be founders.
Djiya's parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all entrepreneurs, and even when they went into consulting jobs after college, they kept an idea diary, writing about problems they saw and how technology could help solve them. I recorded a method.
“I grew up watching my family move goods across borders, so the challenges around international commerce really stuck with me,” she told TechCrunch. She attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she met Nsaka, who had been thinking about the same issues as her. While working as a software engineer at Shopify, he realized that Shopify's Black Friday global sales visualization (a real-time map showing transactions around the world) could relay data about every continent in the world except Africa .
“This observation stuck with me,” Nsaka told TechCrunch. “The easy path would have been to accept conventional wisdom and attribute this disparity to platform preferences or market limitations. But engineering teaches us that assumptions are the enemy of innovation. I did.”
Djiya and Nsaka decided to partner up to launch Zimi, a company that aims to simplify cross-border commerce for retailers who sell across borders. The company, founded earlier this year, announced Monday that it has raised a $2 million seed round led by Fearless Fund with participation from Y Combinator. The problem they are trying to solve is a big problem. Brands that ship internationally face high shipping costs and long delivery times, and often rely on expensive agents.
Zimi said the company is currently focused on sellers selling to the U.S., offering localized fulfillment centers to these international sellers to reduce costs and development time, while also reducing tax costs. It says it aims to help manage regulatory, exchange and compliance.
“Competitors exist to solve different parts of the cross-border puzzle, but what sets us apart from them is our comprehensive solution,” said Zimi's Chief Technology Officer ( said Nsaka, CTO. “Everything a merchant needs to sell internationally can be done in one place on our platform.”
The company's CEO, Jiya, said the funding was relationship driven. Zimi first discovered Fearless Fund after a post about the company's launch went viral on Linkedin, and the company stumbled upon it. “The timing was perfect because I was just starting to think about fundraising,” Jiya said. “The other investors we met also met primarily through direct inbound.”
Zimi built a prospect list and acquired early customers by reaching out to brands directly on Instagram and email. “But our biggest customer acquisition channel came from an unexpected source,” Jiya said. 'LinkedIn' Djiya and Nsaka started sharing the story of what inspired them to build Zimi, and wanted to keep people updated on their journey.
Soon, international merchants began contacting Zimi regarding the problems they were trying to solve, they said.
“What really worked was really engaging with our early customers,” Djiya continued. “We personally helped them set up their accounts, troubleshoot issues, and even packed some of their first orders myself. This gave us valuable insight into their needs. This helped us improve our product.”
Zimi will use the seed round to expand its U.S. fulfillment network and build and apply AI models to make the seller experience more seamless. Next year, the company also plans to launch a payment solution that will help overseas merchants accept payments in US dollars. Zimi is also looking to expand its customer base and team.
“We're seeing strong interest from brands in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa who want to reach customers in the U.S., and we need to expand our infrastructure to support them,” Nsaka said. . “We have just scratched the surface in making global commerce truly accessible to international brands.”