By Mark Kawalya
Treepz, the award-winning African Mobility Startup, has successfully launched in Kenya after raising an additional $1.2m through strategic investment deals over the last year. Treepz, which was founded in Nigeria in September of 2019, expanded its operations into East Africa, with a focus on Kenya, just over a year after launching in Uganda and Ghana.
This marks the company’s fourth country of operation in three years. GIIG Africa Fund led the recent investments, along with MoAngels, Roselake VC, Unpopular VC, Goodwater Capital, and BKR Capital, with follow-on investments from current investors, including ShockVentures, Winston Limited, led by the Lynch Brothers, Aston Investments, and Novum Actus, led by Clara Ogunsemi.
With the launch of Treepz Kenya’s services in Nairobi and with later plans for a Mombasa launch, Mr. Samar Patel, joins the team as the new country manager with 18 years of sales, transportation, and technology experience.
The company’s focus on vehicle rental services, or Business Treepz,” has led to high-tier companies signing up for commuter services for their employees, including Twiga Foods, and Diamond Trust Bank. Similarly, there has been an uptake of the firm’s services by schools to transport students, such as Abacus Schools and OAK House School.
There are currently 20 big-name deals across Kenya in the pipeline. Treepz’s partnerships demonstrate the growing demand for its innovative solutions, especially with vehicle rental services for businesses, and the company is confident that this trend will continue as it expands its reach.
Co-Founder and CEO Onyeka Akumah stated, “We are thrilled by the addition of Samar to our team and the launch of Treepz Kenya in Nairobi today. This was made possible with the support we received from our current investors amid a turbulent 2022. Also, after winning the GSA African Award in Cape Town last year, we received funding from its funding arm – GIIG Africa Fund, and that was also very timely for us.”
Treepz’s goal is to build a centralized solution across the four countries it operates in and provide Africans with excellent mobility services for their personal and business needs. GIIG Africa Fund invested in Treepz after the startup won the Africa Winner in the ‘IndustrialTech’ category at the 2022 African Startup Awards.
According to the latest ‘Africa Tech Venture Capital’ report by Partech, the mobility tech sector accounted for US$195 million (or 4%) of total funding for African startups in 2022, putting it on-par with health-tech and ahead of the ed-tech and agri-tech sectors. This figure is expected to grow as demand for transportation increases amid Africa’s booming population growth and rising rates of urbanization.
