Treepz, a Nigerian shared mobility business, has raised $2.8 million in a seed round and expanded to Uganda with the acquisition of bus firm Ugabus.
Treepz is a digital platform that allows customers to schedule daily trips along set routes. It was founded in 2019 and was formerly known as Plentywaka until its September relaunch. It also acts as an aggregator for bus travel firms in 21 Nigerian cities, allowing them to replace manual ticketing and servicing with digitalized offers and services.
The business received US $1.2 million in initial investment earlier this year and announced the purchase of Ghanaian startup stabus as it began its pan-African growth, adding to an already strong year that included acceptance into the Techstars Toronto accelerator programme.
With further financing from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund Africa, Japanese VC company Uncovered Fund, and Dubai-based VCs such as Blanford Capital and Jonomi Capital, it has now raised a total of US $2.8 million, bringing its seed round to a total of US $2.8 million. Jedar Capital, a firm located in Egypt, also took part in the round with follow-on investments from existing investors.
Treepz’s CEO and co-founder, Onyeka Akumah, said the cash will be used to rapidly expand the company’s on-demand ride-sharing and intercity bus ticketing services across Africa. This is already happening, with Uganda’s Ugabus becoming the company’s second purchase of the year.
Ugabus, which was founded in 2016, now has 70% of all bus operators in the East African country on its network, which has built-in mobile money technology for quick payments. The deal’s terms were not published, but Ugabus will now be known as Treepz Uganda, and its CEO, Ronald Hakiza, will serve as Treepz Uganda’s national manager.
Treepz pleased Takuma Terakubo, CEO and general partner of Uncovered Fund, with its “amazing traction” in the second half of the year, and the business was positioned for much more growth, according to Terakubo.
“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 would work with this new team led by Hakiza in Uganda to explore our growth plans across the neighbouring countries as we aim towards building the largest shared mobility platform in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Akumah said.
“Treepz is building the most important mobility infrastructure in Africa’s megacities. The development of public transportation is essential in African countries where urbanisation is advancing. We look forward to their building the infrastructure for people’s mobility through digital value. As a Japanese VC who places importance on the mobility industry, we would like to provide a lot of value to them,” he said.
