Lagos, Nigeria – 08/02/2016 Jovago.com, Africa N° 1 hotel booking website, Africa Internet Group (AIG) and AXA, a worldwide leader in Insurance and Asset management announced today a partnership to develop the expansion of Jovago in a new round of funding aimed at boosting its activities in Africa. This would further ensure the expansion of the business and strengthen the brand in major cities across Africa and Asia.

AXA as a major investor confirms Jovago’s strategy to expand its operations and local presence in Africa in order to meet the needs of domestic and international travelers. The world class player, will invest £75 million and own approximately 8 percent share capital of AIG, mother company of Jovago. As a result, AXA will thus become a shareholder of AIG along with MTN, Rocket Internet and Millicom.

Through this partnership, Jovago’s current positions as Africa’s largest inventory of hotels will be further consolidated as the company continues its provision of a secure platform to increase the visibility of hotels, improve service quality, facilitate the movement of travelers and promote profitability for their businesses.

“It’s amazing for Jovago to partner with such a strong group as AXA who will allow us to strengthen our ability to build the first plateform for travellers in Africa. Jovago wants to break the barriers to travel and make travel more easy and affordable in Africa. The suppoer of AXA will be key to succeed. ” said Paul Midy, CEO Jovago. He continues by explaining that “since the funding is well-timed and the amounts invested significant, this makes for one of the top investments in the history of start-ups in Africa. It also strategically positions Jovaog and Africa Internet Group to further build e-commerce in Africa.”

This investment will allow AXA to build on the strength of AIG companies to further develop its activities as the company becomes the exclusive provider of insurance products and services throughout AIG.

“This transaction confirms AXA’s long-term commitment towards the African markets and represents another step in our development on the continent. Africa is home to some of the most dynamic and promising insurance markets in the world and our partnership with Africa Internet Group will enable us to accelerate materially our development by having access to their rich customer base and to their state-of-the-art e-commerce technology. Going forward, we aim to enable African consumers to better access insurance solutions to create sustainable financial well-being throughout their lives and those of their dependants“, added Denis Duverne, Deputy CEO of AXA.

Since its creation in 2013 and the opening of its first offices in Africa, Jovago has recorded steady growth. Its large inventory lists 25,000 hotels in over 40 African countries and 200,000 hotels worldwide. With its ongoing success, Jovago aims to drive the innovation of its digital services in the hospitality industry in emerging countries.

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About Jovago

Jovago.com is an online hotel booking service with offices in Lagos (Nigeria), Nairobi (Kenya), Dakar (Senegal) founded by Africa Internet Group and has MTN and Millicom as investors. Jovago.com, Africa’s No.1 booking portal, facilitates the booking process for its users to provide them with the best hotel booking experience with fast, transparent and easy-to-use services.

About AXA

The AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 161,000 employees serving 103 million clients in 59 countries. In 2014, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 92 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 5.1 billion. AXA had Euro 1,277 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2014. The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISN FR 0000120628 – Bloomberg: CS FP – Reuters: AXAF.PA). AXA’s American Depository Share is also quoted on the OTC QX platform under the ticker symbol AXAHY. The AXA Group is included in the main international SRI indexes, such as Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and FTSE4GOOD. It is a founding member of the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) Principles for Sustainable Insurance and a signatory of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.