Kenyan on-demand logistics startup Sendy, which enables customers to book courier services through their cell phones, said that it has received a $20 million Series B round of investments led by Toyota and Atlantica Ventures among others.
Sendy is being supported by Toyota Tsusho Corporation, a trade and investment subsidiary of leading Japanese automotive organisation Toyota.
Being a delivery associate for transporting packages across Kenya, Sendy offers a mobile software tool and web portal that facilitates people and minor businesses to contact drivers and book on-demand or arranged delivery services anytime, any day round the clock.
In its bid to increase its presence in the regions of East Africa, the startup was seeking funding.
Established in 2014 by Don Okoth, Evanson Biwott, Malaika Judd and Meshack Alloys, Sendy provides on-demand door-to-door package delivery services that are based in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya.
Currently boasting of around 50,000 customers, Sendy offers its services to more than 4,000 businesses across the country’s major cities of Thika, Mombasa, Kisumu and of course, Nairobi.
Among the 16 startup firms with which Toyota Tsusho signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) last year, Sendy hires more than 60 individuals out of which 50 percent work in the engineering department.
Malaika Judd, one of the co-founders of Sendy, said that the challenge posed by logistics is so big that all efforts are invested in the process of deriving answers to overcome it.
And, she added that companies such as Sendy would benefit a great deal with the advent of e-commerce.
Commenting on the impact that delivery partners such as Sendy are having on the market, Dennis Awori, the chairman of Toyota in East Africa said that the costs of transporting spare parts from one place to another or to a consumer, has reduced by about 35 percent because of Sendy.