Yobante Express, a Senegalese delivery startup that connects local couriers with local commerce to optimize domestic, cross-border, and last-mile delivery, has raised a US$1.2 million bridge funding round to continue its rapid expansion.
Yobante Express, which launched in November 2018, is a web and mobile platform that leverages gig economy, independent, and casual couriers inside a resilient mesh network of relay points to deliver items twice as fast and 40% more economically than existing options.
Last year, the firm, which participated in the Startupbootcamp AfriTech accelerator program in Cape Town in 2019, was operating in five African markets outside of South Africa, including Botswana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Ghana.
Yobante Express has secured a bridge round of US$1.2 million, ahead of a Series A round that will open at the end of the year. Grenfell Holdings, Launch Africa Ventures, R-Ventures, Libertad via its investment branch Aguila Investments, and a pool of high-profile local and international angel investors are among the investors. It will be utilized to aid the startup’s growth in South Africa and Nigeria.
Yobante Express hopes to raise a Series A round later this year to expand into nations around all of its existing locations.