Shortly after the New York-based Global Shop Group completed its acquisition of the Ivorian e-commerce platform ANKA, the business faced a significant data breach: critical authentication tokens were sold online by unknown parties.
Shortly after the New York-based Global Shop Group completed its acquisition of the Ivorian e-commerce platform ANKA, the business faced a significant data breach: critical authentication tokens were sold online by unknown parties.
The incident raises questions about data-handover protocols in startup acquisitions and the responsibilities of new owners inheriting legacy systems.
ANKA, once known as Afrikrea, was acquired in October 2025 following years of growth, rebranding and international investment.
The new management team at Global Shop now faces integration challenges: not only merging operations across continents but also ensuring that ANKA’s existing infrastructure meets global compliance and security standards.
What’s striking is the timing. For a startup whose value proposition centred on connecting African creators to global customers, complete with logistics, payments and storefront integrations, the discovery of exposed tokens suggests that operational vulnerabilities were not addressed before acquisition.
It raises two issues for the acquirer: first, the extent of due diligence on legacy systems and technical hygiene; second, the financial and reputational risk of carrying forward unmitigated security gaps.
From an investor and acquisition governance standpoint, this case offers a warning. When a platform has grown quickly, often funded and scaled in fragmented markets, its tech stack may include legacy code, weak access controls or incomplete audit logs.
A change of ownership can trigger “legacy shock” when these issues surface. For Global Shop, the incident may mean they will need to allocate unplanned resources to patch security, compensate affected users and potentially revise their acquisition economics.
For ANKA’s creator-seller community and platform users, the breach presents an immediate trust issue. Sellers rely on secure payments, accurate data handling and platform reliability to operate at scale.
A perceived lapse in that trust can undermine retention and slow migration to new infrastructure as directed by Global Shop.
Operationally, recovery will require several steps: a forensic security audit of ANKA’s systems, replacement or invalidation of exposed tokens, communication to affected stakeholders, stronger monitoring tools and potentially third-party certification.
The acquirer must balance the urgency of remediation with the momentum of integrating the business into its global growth plans.
The broader takeaway for acquisitions in Africa’s tech ecosystem is clear: rapid exits are not always clean exits.
Buyers must budget for “hidden remediation” costs, technical, regulatory, security, that may lie dormant until ownership changes.
The ANKA/Global Shop case reminds us that acquisition value is not just about revenue or user base; it’s as much about operational readiness and risk posture of the inherited tech.
In short, ANKA’s new chapter is already testing the payoff of acquisition, not just in growth potential but in post-deal resilience.
For acquirers and investors working in the region, it’s a reminder that unless legacy risks are identified and priced, integration surprises can erode value as much as they create opportunity.
This post was woven from Launch Base Africa
Don’t miss important articles during the week. Subscribe to techbuild weekly digest for updates
