That inefficiency translates into higher prices for everyday essentials. Leta, a Nairobi-based logistics technology company, says it has a solution.

The company just secured $5 million in funding to expand its platform, which helps businesses move products faster and at lower costs. The investment was led by European venture capital firm Speedinvest, with backing from Google’s Africa Investment Fund and Equator, an Africa-focused climate tech fund.

In 2022, Leta pulled in $3 million in pre-seed funding to strengthen its presence in five key markets: Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Since then, the company has scaled really fast, powering 4.5 million deliveries and managing over 7,000 vehicles.

Interestingly, Leta is about making logistics less chaotic. Most businesses in Africa still rely on manual processes to plan and execute deliveries, leading to delays, inefficiencies, and wasted resources. 

Leta’s software changes that by automating key steps—matching shipments to the right vehicles, optimising delivery routes, and tracking orders in real time.

Founder and CEO Nick Joshi explains it simply: “A company with 70 trucks saves about $30,000 monthly using Leta.” That’s because the platform doesn’t just plan routes but reduces the number of vehicles needed for deliveries. Businesses move the same volume of goods but at a lower cost.

The system also makes quick adjustments based on real-world conditions. If a road becomes a trouble spot due to flooding, police stops, or construction, the platform immediately flags it. “For example, if there’s a roundabout where trucks or motorbikes repeatedly fail to complete a turn on that route, the AI flags it,” Joshi said. This flexibility ensures deliveries are completed without unnecessary detours or delays.

Leta is already testing financial products that integrate directly with its platform. These include fuel cards for delivery drivers, financing for fleet owners, and supply chain credit for merchants. Investors see this as a logical next step.

Deepali Nangia, a partner at Speedinvest, explained why her firm backed Leta: “It leverages logistics as a gateway and fintech as a growth driver, unlocking new business opportunities.”

Leta’s approach differs from earlier African logistics startups like Sendy and KOBO360, which focused on aggregating trucks. Many of those companies struggled with high costs of operations and eventually pivoted or shut down. Leta is betting on a software-first model instead—partnering with existing fleet owners rather than managing assets itself.

With the new funding, Leta plans to enter more African and Middle Eastern markets. It already counts major brands like KFC and Diageo as clients and aims to double its revenue in the coming months.

Since 2022, Leta has grown from handling 500,000 deliveries to 4.5 million. It has increased its fleet from 2,000 vehicles to over 7,400 and helped businesses transport 150,000 tonnes of goods.

The firm plans to use the capital to support early-stage startups developing innovative solutions in energy, agriculture, and mobility.

African climate tech startups are usually hit with funding limitations compared to companies in developed economies, where government subsidies provide required support. 

Instead, African startups rely heavily on development finance institutions (DFIs), foundations, and endowments, making them vulnerable to global financial changes. 

With aid budgets shrinking, DFIs have reduced funding, increasing the pressure on African startups—particularly in climate tech, which demands higher capital investment.

With this new fund, Equator aims to bridge the financing gap and attract private investors to the region. “We are needed more than ever to invest in technology and scalable ventures tackling fundamental climate challenges,” said Nijhad Jamal, managing partner at Equator. 

“These investments will help reduce dependence on aid and instead bring more global private capital into the region.”

Equator intends to invest in 15 to 18 startups, providing funding ranging from $750,000 to $1 million for seed-stage companies and up to $2 million for those in Series A. 

Beyond capital, the firm will assist startups with unit economics, governance, and expansion strategies. A portion of the fund will also be reserved for follow-on investments, with Equator mobilising its limited partners (LPs) as co-investors to bring in additional equity, debt, or blended financing.

“In several of our portfolio companies, we’re the only Africa-focused investor on the cap table — that’s the role we see ourselves playing in this ecosystem,” Jamal explained. “Until our most recent investments, we had a 100% success rate in bringing our investors directly into the ventures we backed.”

Equator’s investment focus aligns with the pressing climate challenges in Africa, a continent that contributes less than 3% of global energy-related CO₂ emissions but suffers disproportionately from climate change. The firm backs startups that address both economic and environmental challenges arising from these issues.

While climate tech investments have grown, changing market conditions have altered investor expectations. Initially, the emphasis was on social impact, but today, investors demand clearer economic value from climate solutions. 

Companies must now prove profitability and strong unit economics rather than relying on impact alone.

Jamal noted key areas where climate startups are showing commercial viability. These include cost-effective electric vehicles, precise climate insurance for extreme weather, and AI-driven logistics solutions. Equator-backed companies like Roam Electric, Ibisa, and Leta are developing such innovations.

“The narrative has shifted,” Jamal said. “It’s no longer just about development and impact. It’s about mobilising private capital for scalable ventures that solve problems. The focus today is even more on things like unit economics and the path to profitability, because people know there isn’t just [enough] capital to throw at ventures to scale without thinking about monetisation, real economics, profitability or exits.”

Unlike early cleantech startups such as Sun King, M-KOPA, and d.light—companies that raised billions and are now approaching IPOs—the new wave of climate startups operates in a more structured ecosystem. This environment allows them to use capital more efficiently and position themselves for acquisitions rather than billion-dollar IPOs.

Jamal predicts that instead of massive public listings, African climate tech startups will see $100 million exits, which can still yield strong investor returns.

The industry has already witnessed some consolidation, including BBOXX’s acquisition of PEG Africa in 2022 and the merger of Equator-backed SteamaCo with Shyft Power Solutions.

To achieve sustainable exits, startups must balance capital structuring. Climate tech attracted the highest amount of debt financing last year, and Jamal emphasised the importance of managing equity dilution. 

“If equity is used for everything, including working capital, dilution will be too high for investors or founders to see meaningful returns. But as debt and other financial instruments become more available, we’ll start seeing commercial exits, even if they’re more bite-sized,” he explained.

Equator’s leadership team includes Jamal and Morgan DeFoort. Before co-founding Equator, Jamal worked at BlackRock and Acumen Fund, where he led cleantech investments. 

He also founded Moja Capital, an early-stage investment fund with a strategy aligned with Equator. Among his notable investments are SunCulture, a Kenyan off-grid solar company, as well as Apollo Agriculture and Odyssey Energy Solutions.

Equator invests in low-carbon technologies and business model innovation to tackle global warming and boost communities’ and businesses’ resilience.

Startups in seed and Series A stages across the energy, agriculture and mobility sectors where lots of untapped market opportunities keep growing, are Equator’s major focus as it takes these companies from their earliest to growth stages.

Equator is looking to invest in ventures that leverage technology, such as hardware, software or business model innovation, to bring new ideas to regions with limited innovation. Focusing on clean energy, agriculture and mobility, the fund aims to support technical founders with domain expertise who can create solutions to alleviate the effects of climate change on income disparity in Africa.

With the goal of making up to 15 investments throughout the fund’s projected time period, Equator typically provides pre-Series B clean tech startups in sub-Saharan Africa with round sizes of $10 million or less. For seed stages, the VC invests between $1 to $2 million, and for Series A stages, it writes checks of between $2 to $4 million. 

With teams in Nairobi, Lagos, London, and Colorado, Equator is also collaborating with Factor[e] Ventures – an organization of venture builders and pre-seed investors – in sourcing deals and conducting due diligence, as well as leveraging its post-investment support platform for the benefit of its portfolio companies as they scale.

Equator anticipates capitalizing on the rising awareness of climate tech’s significance and its role in tackling climate change. Even though it is far behind fintech, investments in the field are gradually being used to lower the cost of solar systems and batteries, and allowing more individuals and businesses to access them through pay-as-you-go models.