Kenyan social-ecommerce platform Tushop has received $3 million in pre-seed funding from 4DX Ventures, JAM Funds, Breyer Capital, Chandaria Capital, TO Ventures and FirstCheck Africa, with participation from FirstCheck Africa and DFS Lab. Tushop has received its first strategic institutional investment from Wasoko (previously Sokowatch), which shows that the company has faith in the team’s capacity to seize Africa’s community group-buying opportunity.
GB (CEO, Flutterwave), Raja Kaul (Logos Ventures), Eli Pollak (CEO, Apollo Agriculture), and Ida Mannoh (CEO, Apollo Agriculture) were among the angel investors who participated in the oversubscribed round (Director of Growth, Chipper Cash).
“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,” Cathy Chepkemboi, Founder & CEO at Tushop, said.
The funds will be used to increase Tushop’s personnel, invest in technology to make its platform as user-friendly as possible, and expand further across Nairobi before expanding to other Kenyan cities.
Why The Investors Invested
Peter Orth, Managing Partner at 4DX added, “We think that the market opportunity for Tushop is incredibly large, and that Cathy is the right founder to go after it given her deep understanding of the market, and impressive execution and growth 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.”
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Daniel Yu, CEO of Wasoko commented, “It has been great witnessing Tushop’s incredible growth, driven by strong leadership and a team that embodies a true understanding of consumers and their communities. We are excited to work with a team that shares our vision of affordability and equitable distribution of goods across Africa.”
A Look At What The Startup Does
Tushop was established in 2021 with the goal of lowering the cost and simplifying the process of buying goods in Kenya, and eventually throughout the rest of Africa. Consumers can save up to 60% on groceries when they buy in a community group rather than at a supermarket, dukas, or “mama mbogas,” and they get the added convenience of free delivery.
Tushop relies on “Community Leaders” who collect orders from their neighbors and deliver them door-to-door. The Community Leaders can earn extra money by arranging and delivering orders as a result of this. Nice Tuan in China and Favo in Brazil are examples of successful community group-buying enterprises in other areas.
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In Africa, this model has a significant impact. While community group buying is still in its infancy, the sector has great potential: For example, Kenyans spend 46% of their income on food, compared to 22% in China, 16% in Brazil and 6% in the United States. Africans buy $260 billion worth of food each year. When compared to community group buying, traditional methods like as shopping at dukas, open-air markets, or wholesalers are less convenient and more expensive.
“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. We also have first hand experience of the difficulties manufacturers face when moving goods through a fragmented supply chain, which creates 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,” Chepkemboi said.
Tushop ecommerce Tushop ecommerce
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer