Headquarted in Toronto, a Nigeria ride-hailing startup –Plentywaka, has raised a $1.2 million seed round to upscale its operations.
Led by Canadian-based VC The Xange, participants in seed round were SOSV and Shock Ventures, Nigerian Argentil Capital Partners , ODBA & Co Ventures, while Techstars Toronto was a return investor in the seed round. Angle investors from the US and Canada also participated in this seed round.
Expressing their views on the seed round, Todd Finch, Managing partner at Lead investor The Xchange said: “Given Onyeka’s proven track record, his team’s undeniable thirst for making an impact, and PlentyWaka’s impressive growth, we knew this was an opportunity we wanted to invest in”. Sunil Sharma, Managing Director of Techstars said: “We are incredibly excited by our investment in PlentyWaka. Techstars is a huge believer in the future of Africa and a proud supporter of African entrepreneurs. Onyeka is a two-time Techstars founder which deepens this relationship further”.
Plentywaka was launched in 2019 as a subsidiary company of CrowdyVest. Today, it has grown to 80,000+ users who have completed over half of a million trips.
To fulfill its plans for expansion, the startup got admitted into the Techstars Toronto accelerator program and set up its headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Not neglecting Pan-African expansion, Plentywaka is employing an acqui-hire model by acquiring Stabus – a Ghanaian mobility startup.
Stabus was launched in 2019, and since then, it has moved over 100,000 people just within Accra. With this acquisition, Plentywaka’s mobile app users will be able to book a ride from its fleet of 900 vehicles made of cars, vans and buses. Plentywaka offers two services: Dailywaka for intrastate travels, and Travelwaka for interstate trips. Isidore Kpotufe, CEO of then Stabus, has keyed into the acquisition, as his profile on LinkedIn now reads: “Building PlentyWaka, Ghana”.
Onyeka Akumah and Isidore Kpotufe, CEO of PlentyWaka and Stabus respectively, have been familiar with themselves for quite some time. In April this year, due to the positive impressive growth that PlentyWaka left on Kpotufe’s mind, he had asked if PlentyWaka had plans to expand into Ghana. When PlentyWaka gave an affirmative response and mentioned moving into the country towards year’s end, both CEOs decided to merge instead of being competitors. In the light of that development, Kpotufe became country manager in Ghana.
In a statement, Akumah affirmed that “PlentyWaka’s acquisition of Stabus is a firm statement about our commitment to grown and build the largest shared mobility startup in Africa, one country at a time. Isidore is a brilliant entrepreneur and we are excited about having him and his team execute our plans for the Ghanaian market. PlentyWaka will go live in Accra for travelers on September 16th, this year.
After Accra, PlentyWaka plans to expand into 6 more African countries within 24 months. To facilitate the expansion, it is raising a Series A to make this possible.
