PAPS, a Senegalese logistics startup, has raised a $4.5 million pre-Series A round to expand its tech-enabled logistics solution across the Francophone region.
The round was co-led by pan-African venture capital firm 4DX Ventures and Orange.
It saw participation from existing funds Uma Ventures and Saviu Ventures as well as new investors Yamaha Motor, LoftyInc Capital, Proparco, Google Ventures, To.org, Kepple Ventures and Enza Capital.
PAPS will use the pre-Series A round to strengthen its tech team, build out physical infrastructure to onboard more warehouses, hubs and fleets and extend its offering to more African companies.
Founded in 2016 by Bamba Lo, PAPS provides end-to-end logistics solutions for businesses with offline and online operations. PAPS also offers merchants with visibility features to track and know the status of deliveries from takeoff to the point of destination. Merchants can also schedule deliveries on the platform.
PAPS says it is the largest last-mile fleet in Senegal, making over 10 million deliveries across its two markets since inception. It claims that its delivery numbers are growing 150% year-on-year.
“When we launched PAPS, the first thing we wanted to give to our clients was visibility on their transactions, they had to know when the driver has picked their goods up, where the goods are during transit, and when it arrives,” Lo, the chief executive, said.
“So that’s what we are trying to do to build — an infrastructure that can serve all B2B clients from warehousing and dispatching to the last-mile delivery.”
Walter Baddoo, co-founder and general partner at 4DX Ventures, said in a statement, “We have been impressed with the Paps team’s execution thus far and their dedication to creating a truly innovative business in the logistics space.
“We believe technology has a critical role to play in modernizing Africa’s logistics infrastructure and we look forward to further partnering with Bamba and the paps team on this next phase of their growth”.
