Plentywaka, a mobility startup based in Lagos and Toronto, has reportedly raised $1.2 million in a seed round to expand its operation after exiting Techstars Toronto accelerator program last month.
The round was led by The Xchange, a Canadian-based VC firm, with Shock Ventures and SOSV as participants. Meanwhile, Techstars Toronto made a follow-on investment.
Nigerian firms ODBA & Co Ventures and Argentil Capital Partners also participated in the seed round along with some angel investors from Canada and other parts of the U.S. and Africa.
Plentywaka CEO, Onyeka Akumah had commented earlier that the two-year-old firm was seeking regional and global expansion.
Since then there hasn’t been much improvement at the latter besides the firm established its headquarters in Canada. However, the company said that it has now completely acquired Stabus, a Ghanaian mobility startup, but declined to comment on the purchase price.
Plentywaka is a platform for bus booking. However, its website contains more than 900 vehicles ranging from buses to vans to cars.
The company offers intrastate travel (via its Dailywaka offering) and interstate travel (via its Travelwaka offering) through a mobile app. Plentywaka said it had acquired over 80,000 users while completing up to half a million trips since its launch in September 2019.
On the other hand, Stabus began its operation in Ghana after Plentywaka’s launch. Isidore Kpotufe, its co-founder and CEO, shared that since then, the startup has used different vehicles to transport more than 100,000 people in the country’s capital city Accra.
There were problem of deciding whether to stick with the Stabus brand or change it. Ultimately, they chose the latter, renaming the acquired 12,000-user firm to Plentywaka Ghana. Multinationals like GB Foods and MTN are among the Stabus’ (now Plentywaka Ghana) customers. Temporarily, Kpotufe takes over as the new company’s country manager.
Source Credit - https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/23/mobility-startup-plentywaka-picks-up-1-5m-seed-acquires-ghanas-stabus/