Amitruck, a Kenyan logistics startup, has raised $4 million in seed funding.
The round was led by Better Tomorrow Ventures (BTV), with the participation of Dynamo Ventures, Rackhouse Venture Capital, Flexport Inc, Knuru Capital, Launch Africa Ventures, Uncovered Fund, and a number of angel investors. This brings the total funding raised by the startup to $5 million.
Launched in 2019 by Mark Mwangi and Timothy Mwangi, Amitruck connects shippers with transporters operating trucks, vans, tuk-tuks (three-wheelers), pick-ups and motorbikes, allowing them to negotiate the rates of haulage.
Amitruck has over 300 B2B customers in Kenya including FMCG firm Unilever, L’Oreal; a beauty company, SkyGarden; an e-commerce platform and Twiga; a fresh produce marketplace. They also work with individual customers, who are, for example, moving houses.
Per numbers, Amitruck has over 8,000 vehicles registered on its platform, and the company claims its revenue grew 1,000% in 2021 from 400% in the previous year, as Covid made apparent the need to digitize supply chain processes.
Amitruck will use the new financing round to double down its technical, operations and sales team to lay ground for its entry into Tanzania and Uganda markets.
Commenting, CEO Mark Mwangi said: “The opportunity is massive. The majority of this market is still controlled by the middlemen. Followed closely by our customers’ own vehicles.
“In Africa, 99% of goods have to use a vehicle of some type. We really don’t use that much in terms of waterway or air. And at the moment, it can cost up to five times more than it does in more developed markets to move those goods,” said Mwangi.
“The most important purpose of this round is hiring. We are also improving our technology as we start our expansion into other countries in Africa,” he said.
BTV’s general partner Jake Gibson said, “As an investor in a unicorn CloudTruck startup here in the US, we have in-depth knowledge of the operational and financial requirements from truckers.”
“While the trucking and logistic business in Africa has grown tremendously over the years, the pace of innovation particularly in its administration has been slow. Amitruck’s solution is ideal for bringing the industry into the 21st century,” he said.
