Logistics vertical hotting up, as Kenya’s Sendy closes $20m Series-B round

Nairobi-based on-demand delivery platform Sendy has raised $20-million in a Series-B investment round led by Atlantica Ventures.

Sendy connects businesses and individuals to third party delivery drivers of all vehicle types in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The startup was founded in 2014 by Meshack Alloys, Malaika Judd, Evanson Biwott and Don Okoth.

The announcement was made by US tech publication TechCrunch in an article yesterday. The publication said Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a trade and investment arm of Japanese automotive company Toyota, also participated in the round.

TechCrunch said the company plans to use the new investment to hire new employees and to upgrade its tech.

Sendy has raised $20-million in a Series-B investment round led by Atlantica Ventures

The raise follows the $2-million that Dutch impact investor Goodwell Investments announced in October last that it invested in the startup (see this story).

In its article yesterday, TechCrunch quoted Alloys who said the startup currently has offices in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda (the startup announced in an article in November last year that it had expanded to the East African country), with 5000 vehicles on its platform that move various kinds of goods.

It said Sendy offers services for e-commerce, enterprise, and freight delivery for a client list that includes Unilever, DHL, Maersk, Safaricom and African online retailer Jumia.

Logistics investments piling up

Things are hotting up in the logistics space. Last year the logistics and transport sector (including ride-hailing and mobility) accounted for one of the largest chunks in investment raised by startups on the continent (see this story).

Sendy’s raise comes after Nigerian trucking logistics startup Kobo360 announced in August last year that it had raised $20 million in a round led by Goldman Sachs (see this story).

This, while in November Kenyan on-demand delivery venture Lori Systems (which is headed by SA’s Josh Sandler) raised an undisclosed amount in investment from Chinese investors (see this story).

Singapore-based news and intelligence platform Deal Street Asia said in an article at the time that the round came to nearly $30-million. But Lori Systems maintained in a statement issued later that same day on Medium that the deal’s amount remains undisclosed.

Read more: Lori Systems, a logistics startup headed by SA man, nets ‘undisclosed’ Series-A round
Read more: Are these the 10 biggest deals by African tech startups in 2019?
Read more: Kenyan on-demand delivery platform Sendy raises $2m
Read more: Nigeria’s Kobo360 closes whopping $20m Series-A round led by Goldman Sachs

Featured image: Sendy via Facebook