Treepz, a Nigerian mobility startup formerly Plentywaka, has raised a $1.5 million seed extension from new investors including Uncovered Fund, Blanford Capital, Jonomi Capital, and Jedar Capital.
The seed extension follows the $1.3 million seed funding which Treepz used to acquire Ghana’s Stabus. The seed round is now closed at $2.8 million.
In addition to the seed funding, Treepz also announced that it has fully acquired Ugabus’s operations and staff, marking Treepz’s first entry into the East African market. The seed extension was used to fund the acquisition.
Ugabus, which will be renamed Treepz Uganda on December 1, currently has 70% of all the country’s bus operators on its platform, which includes around 50,000 customers that use the service to travel between cities in Uganda.
Following the acquisition of Ugabus, Treepz will kickstart operations in Uganda with “Intercity” and “Corporate services” due to popular demand by customers in the region.
“We’ll be able to service most of the major cities in Uganda, but the good thing about East Africa is they have very seamless borders between the countries, so it’s easy to move from Uganda to Rwanda, Uganda to Tanzania, Tanzania to Burundi, and so forth,” said Onyeka Akumah, CEO and co-founder of Treepz.
“The plan is to extend into Tanzania and Burundi first. Those are places we will pay attention to next year. We are also really interested in Ethiopia. So the same thing we were doing with Ghana, across Ghana to Togo and Benin from Nigeria for the West African region. So next year, we will consolidate on our positions on East Africa and West Africa and start collapsing into on in Sub Saharan Africa.”
“Treepz is building the most important mobility infrastructure in Africa’s megacities,” said Takuma Terakubo, CEO and general partner of Uncovered Fund, in a statement. “The development of public transportation is essential in African countries where urbanisation is advancing.”
