$3 M received by Kenyan social commerce startup Tushop to scale community group-buying

Tushop, a Nairobi-based social commerce business that allows residents to buy goods for less money with free delivery, has raised $3 million in pre-seed capital to expand its staff and platform and expand across Kenya.

Tushop, which was founded in 2021, wants to make grocery shopping more economical and convenient for Kenyans, and eventually all Africans. When compared to supermarkets, dukas, or “mama mbogas,” community group-buying saves consumers up to 60% on groceries while also giving the convenience of free delivery.

Tushop collaborates with “community leaders,” who gather orders from their neighbours and coordinate door-to-door delivery. This not only facilitates last-mile delivery, but also provides additional money for community leaders who coordinate and distribute orders.

JAM Fund, Breyer Capital, Chandaria Capital, TO Ventures, Golden Palm Investments, FirstCheck Africa, and DFS Lab are among the investors in the startup’s $3 million pre-seed round. Wasoko (previously Sokowatch), a Kenyan retail-tech firm, has also joined Tushop, marking its first strategic institutional investment.

Olugbenga “GB” Agboola (Flutterwave CEO), Raja Kaul (Sundial Group president), Eli Pollak (Apollo Agriculture CEO), and Ida Mannoh were among the angel investors that contributed to the oversubscribed round (Chipper Cash director of growth). Tushop will utilise the capital to expand its personnel, invest in technology to make its platform as user-friendly as possible, and expand across Nairobi before expanding to other Kenyan cities.

“Tushop is unique in this market because we know the customer – we are our own customers! We have grown up experiencing the problem of unaffordable food on the one hand and the need to have additional “side hustles” on the other because of persistently low incomes,” said Cathy Chepkemboi, founder and CEO at Tushop.

“We also have first-hand experience of the difficulties manufacturers face when moving goods through a fragmented supply chain, which creates a distance between them and the customers they serve. We are therefore hyper-focused on delivering a superior experience for suppliers, “side-hustling” community leaders, as well as our end-customers in an integrated manner.”

Tushop’s new investors were warmly welcomed.

“We are stoked to be working with some of the leading investors globally and locally who really understand the African space from a logistics, tech, and payments perspective, and look forward to justifying their faith in us with future growth, commercial success, and meaningful social impact. Wasoko’s investment in us is also a validating signal of the work we’ve done so far and we look forward to working closely with them to scale Tushop,” said Chepkemboi.

According to Peter Orth, managing partner at 4DX, the market opportunity for Tushop was enormous, and Chepkemboi was the perfect founder to pursue it because of her intimate knowledge of the sector and remarkable execution and development thus far.

“We’re thrilled to join such a strong team of other investors and advisors to help Tushop become the dominant player in group-buying across Africa,” he said.

Tushop’s success, according to Daniel Yu, CEO of Wasoko, has been fueled by outstanding leadership and a staff that exemplifies a deep knowledge of customers and their communities.

“We are excited to work with a team that shares our vision of affordability and equitable distribution of goods across Africa,” he said.