By Mark Kawalya
Transport startup Treepz, which runs a platform that digitalizes and makes public transportation safer and more reliable across Africa, announced its acquisition of Ugabus, a Ugandan mobility bus company that operates under a similar model.
The Nigerian firm that was started in 2019 and has its footprint in Ghana and Nigeria eases road transportation using digital infrastructure.
Treepz enables passengers to log into their accounts and schedule daily rides that run along fixed routes in the cities of Lagos and Accra. The platform also operates as an aggregator for more than 12 bus companies that have since replaced manual ticketing with digitalized ticketing systems using Treepz.
On the other hand, Ugabus has more than 70% of all bus operators in East Africa signed onto their platform, with e-payments being facilitated using mobile money.
Onyeka Akumah, CEO and Co-founder of Treepz, while speaking about the acquisition, said, “Everyone at Treepz is excited to welcome the team at Ugabus to the Treepz family. This has been in the works for some time, along with our deal that happened in Ghana a few months ago, and so, we are really happy about closing the deal successfully. East Africa is an exciting target for Treepz and from Uganda, we will work with this new team led by Hakiza in Uganda to explore our growth plans across the neighboring countries as we aim towards building the largest shared mobility platform in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Treepz’s application allows potential passengers to search, compare, and book rides within the city and across different cities without leaving the comfort of their homes.
Ugabus has over the years established an indigenous technology that is intercity focused, which makes a good match for Treepz’s progressive desire to integrate mobile money technology and on-demand public transportation to new African terrains.
“We care a lot about how people move from one city to another, and we do our best to build the most reliable bus booking app in Uganda. Now we’re joining the TREEPZ family to accomplish a bigger vision that we think we can better achieve with TREEPZ. We have known and respected the exploits of the founding team led by Onyeka Akumah and today, we are very happy that we will be pioneering the business growth of Treepz in East Africa starting with Uganda,” said Ronald Hakiza, CEO and Founder of Ugabus.
The nitty-gritties of the deal remain undisclosed, although the 100% acquisition will enable Treepz to expand its geographical footprint in East Africa, thanks to the widespread Ugabus operations in the region.
