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

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.