An employee of tech start-up Sendy, which offers online logistics
services, works on her computer at their office in Nairobi, Kenya,
October 30, 2018. PHOTO | REUTERS
Kenyan start-up Sendy, which operates an app linking delivery
drivers with
customers, has raised Ksh 2billion ($19.9 million) for expansion, it said on Thursday.
customers, has raised Ksh 2billion ($19.9 million) for expansion, it said on Thursday.
The five-year-old
business has more than 30,000 customers in East Africa, ranging from
corporate clients to individuals. The latest round of funding was led by
Toyota Tsusho Corporation.
“The funding comes at a
time when Sendy’s plan is to grow its customer base and expand to other
African countries,” Sendy said in a statement.
The
company is among a host of African start-ups seeking to harness
technology to overcome challenges for African businesses contending with
unreliable, fragmented and inaccessible logistics, which normally drive
up costs of goods and services.
“We are on a mission
to make it easy to trade in Africa,” said Sendy Chief Executive Meshack
Alloys, who co-founded the company with chief operating officer Malaika
Judd.
“Businesses have been able to lower the cost of
logistics by up to 40 per cent and dramatically shorten the time it
takes to deliver products to their customers.”
Sendy began operations in neighbouring Uganda last November and
plans to expand into other African markets by 2021, it said in the
statement.
Previous investors in Sendy, which has
modelled itself on platforms such like Indonesia’s Go-jek, include local
telecoms operator Safari com and Dutch investor DO Equity.
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