Investor Update: Amitruck Raises $4m Seed Funding for Expansion in Africa

Kenyan logistics startup Amitruck raises $4m seed

Highlights

• Kenya-based digital trucking logistics startup Amitruck has raised a US$4 million seed funding round to accelerate its expansion across Africa and expand its team across key functions, including sales, engineering, and customer success. 
• Launched in 2019, Amitruck is a marketplace that seeks to bring trust, transparency, and efficiency to transport. The startup’s platform connects transporters directly with cargo owners via its web or mobile application, avoiding middlemen. 
• Transporters bid for work on the platform, ensuring competitive prices, while cargo owners have convenient access to a range of competitive offers and can choose a transporter based on price, rating, and experience. 

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Transport touches on almost every sector of the African economy and is crucial to its development. Within the industry, the trucking and logistics market accounts for almost 80% of transported goods but players in this space often grapple with challenges caused by fragmentation and lack of transparency. With digitization, Amitruck solves this problem while taping into the lucrative industry. In just over two years, it has seen stellar growth with more than 8,000 vehicles listed on its platform and almost 100,000 deliveries completed for over 300 corporate clients. Last year, the startup’s revenue grew 1,000%.

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Casava raises $4m to broaden insurance access for Nigerians

Highlights

• Casava, a digital insurance company, has secured $4 million in pre-seed funding led by Target Global to provide accessible insurance products for millions of Nigerians. 
• Launched last year, Casava aims to make insurance affordable for income earners by leveraging technology, behavioral science, and empathy. The startup is a vertically integrated company with a wholly-owned microinsurance carrier in Nigeria and a full technology stack to power it.
• The new funds will support customer acquisition and growth, and further development of the product and the technology stack. Casava already has more than 66,000 customers, with $16 million in insurance coverage.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway

As of 2018, less than 2% of the Nigerian adult population had one form of insurance. This is reflective of what’s obtainable across the continent, where the insurance penetration rate in the same year stood at a meager 1.12% or 3% in South Africa. Many startups like Casava have emerged in recent years with the mission of broadening insurance coverage across the continent, riding on the increasing adoption of mobile devices, as Africa plays catch up in the global insurance space.

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Egypt’s YFS raises $7 million Series A

Highlights

• Delivery service and logistics startup Yalla Fel Sekka (YFS) has raised $7 million in its latest funding round led by DisruptAD, UAE-based ADQ’s venture platform.
• YFS offers affordable instant delivery services for enterprises in Egypt’s urban communities, using its digital platform and diverse fleet that comprises 1,000 drivers of motorcycles and vans.
• Co-founded by Khashayar Mahdavi and Yasmine Abdel Karim, the startup focuses on delivery in the sectors of groceries, food, e-commerce consolidators, retailers, and pharmaceutical products.

Source: Wamda

Our Takeaway

Across Africa, last-mile logistics and delivery remain the bane of many businesses but in recent years, quite a number of startups have emerged on the continent to solve the problem through technology. These companies, like YFS, make courier and delivery services available to businesses of varying sizes. These services are particularly crucial to Africa’s e-commerce market and on the back of a pandemic-induced boom in e-commerce, on-demand delivery in the Middle East and North Africa is estimated to reach $47 billion by 2030.