Y-Combinator to Raise Funds for Nigerian Logistics Startup

Kobo360, a Nigerian Logistic startup has built an app quite similar to that of Uber which connects companies that have freight requirements with Nigerian truckers. The drivers get paid online immediately after delivering each consignment successfully. Quite recently they have gained a working capital of 1.2 million dollars in pre-seed funding.

Along with this, they are also working on a ‘Kobo Wealth Investment Network’ (KoboWIN), a vehicle financing program through which drivers can purchase new trucks with the help of “citizen investors” and pay them back directly with interest over a period of five years.  Obi Ozor, the co-founder of Kobo360 says that they have created this platform in order to overcome the option of limited vehicles for its truckers in Nigeria. He also says that they hope for an addition of at least 20,000 trucks to the Kobo Logistics.

Ozor was initially head of Uber, Nigeria before getting together with Ife Oyedele to form Kobo360. “We give drivers the demand and technology to power their businesses. An average trucker will make $3,500 a month with our app. That’s middle-class territory in Nigeria,” said Ozor. As per the company statistics, Kobo has undertaken around 326 assignments and has as many as 5496 drivers on duty who have shipped a total of 38M Kgs of Cargo since their inception. Some of their important clients are Honeywell, DHL, Unilever, and Olam.

The app manages approximately 5000 trips every month. Ozor believes that the start up’s digital portal and business plan will help them overhaul the other startups in the industry. “Owning trucks is just too difficult to manage. The best scalable model is to aggregate trucks,” he said. “We now have more trucks than providers like TSL Logistics Limited and they’ve been here….years. By the end of this year, we plan to have 20,000 trucks on our app—probably more than anyone on this continent.”