Zuvaa
Zuvaa is an online marketplace for to buy and sell products by African designers created by an entrepreneur in Atlanta, GA. While it functions to some degree like eBay, where consumers log in, search what they're looking for, purchase it, and the creator on the other side ships it, Zuvaa also operates sometimes like Amazon, keeping certain items in stock and shipping directly to the purchaser.
The entrepreneur boasts that all of the designers on the platform are curated and "vetted" to ensure quality control.
To appear on Zuvaa, designers are charged a 17% commission on every dale as well as a flat fee.
The entrepreneur stated that she started the business with $500 and had turned that into $2,000,000 in sales over the lifetime of the company. The site currently gets 120,000 monthly visitors and makes $50,000 a month on commissions. However, operations consume that revenue as it currently costs $50,000 a month to run the business. To keep costs low, returns are only shipped back to the designer on a quarterly basis to minimize shipping costs.
The entrepreneur is looking for a shark because she says her platform "does not scale or meet the needs of the designers" and wants a shark's expertise in revamping the technology.
Unfortunately, none of the sharks were willing to meet the valuation of the company or risk the amount of money being asked for and the entrepreneur left the tank without a deal.
This deal aired on Episode 9.19.