Social commerce startup, Kapu has raised $8 million in seed funding after coming out of stealth today.
The goal is to enable Kenyan consumers purchase food items at affordable prices rather than having to put up with the ever-increasing price hike.
The seed round was co-led by Giant Ventures and Firstminute Capital, with participation from Founder Collective, Base Capital, Norrsken (Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth’s fund) and Raven One. They join Kapu’s early backers, including India’s Meesho and Brazil’s Facily co-founders, and a number of African family offices, Twitter’s Biz Stone, Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen, Tom Blomfield of Monzo and serial entrepreneur Alexander Rittweger.
Kapu is also expanding its network of local agents to enable consumers place orders seamlessly and will soon support WhatsApp orders. By sourcing directly from manufacturers and producers, Kapu enables group bulk-buying of groceries and helps consumers save up 30% of the spend on fresh produce and packaged consumer goods.
Founded by Sam Chappatte, former Jumia Group executive vice president, the startup was launched in January 2022, and is currently building a B2C e-commerce service that enables consumers buy groceries at lower prices, through online and offline channels.
Kapu affirms to have 1,500 agent collection centers across Nairobi, and in its next phase of growth, will work to fully penetrate Kenya’s capital before expanding to new markets.
The startup’s offline channel and online direct-to-consumer models are designed to suit the Kenyan market, where e-commerce has not taken off but social commerce is showing signs of potential.
Kenya is said to have one of the highest percentages of monthly WhatsApp users in the world, according to Global Web Index’s 2020 Social Media User Trends Report — happening as the popularity of the social commerce sector surges in the region as the shift toward online shopping continues post-Covid pandemic.
Kapu joins the growing list of startups that are digitizing the informal retail sector in Kenya, including Tushop, which launched last year. Kapu and Tushop are both enabling group buying of food supplies through agents and WhatsApp.
