Kenya-based B2B2C (business to business and business to consumers) mobility marketplace BuuPass has raised $1.30 million in a pre-seed round led by Founders Factory Africa. 

The round also saw participation from Google Black Founders Fund, Gullit VC, Five35 VC, Artha India Ventures, FrontEnd Ventures, Adaverse, Renew Capital, Changecom, XA Network, Ajim Capital, and Daba Finance. 

The company will utilise the funds for expanding into East African markets with a special focus on Kenya and Uganda since the Company aims to increase its market share in these markets. This is the first institutional round raised by BuuPass, which previously received $1 million in grants from Bill Clinton-backed Hult Prize.

Sonia Kabra, co-founder, and co-CEO, BuuPass, said, “ I co-founded BuuPass to build the digital infrastructure for transport in Africa. With the support of our investors, we are thrilled to scale our product and expand our reach, making transportation more seamless and accessible. This funding will enable us to expand our footprint in Kenya and Uganda. Our goal is to create a comprehensive continent-wide network of interconnected transport that make travelling hassle-free for all.”

Founded in 2016, BuuPass follows a B2B2C approach and provides fleet owners with a full-stack bus management system (‘BMS’) for managing their operations, inventory, and sales. The BMS also includes a point-of-sale solution to capture bookings and provides access to a parcel management module. BuuPass helps customers search, compare and book their tickets across different channels through their marketplace, like websites, apps, and USSD codes.

The company claims to have over 1,200 vehicles registered on its platform from over 25 bus companies. Through its partnership with Safaricom (or M-Pesa), the Company is the sole technology provider for online railway ticket booking in Kenya and generated a GMV of $30 million in CY 2022. It currently processes around 12,000 transactions daily. 

Anirudh A Damani, Director of Artha India Ventures, stated, “The African continent is fast emerging as a start-up innovation hotbed. The African ecosystem is churning out many unique investment opportunities that will disrupt the market across sectors. Artha India Ventures is taking an early bet to back potential category winners with immense promise. In that vein, BuuPass has taken the lead in building digital rails for Africa’s intercity transport infrastructure.”