Jetstream Africa, a Ghanaian logistics startup, has raised $3 million in debt and equity to support its aim of enabling businesses on the continent to view and control their cross-border supply chains.
Alitheia IDF, Golden Palm Investments, 4DX Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Asia Pacific Land, Breyer Labs, and MSA Capital were among the investors in this round.
CEO Miishe Addy and COO Solomon Torgbo founded the company in 2018.
Jetstream is a cross-border logistics tech company that creates digital solutions for cargo owners and logistics providers.
Jetstream was founded as a logistics company for cosmetics makers.
They aggregated finished shea and other product airfreight shipments and sent them to the United States for distribution.
However, the founders soon realized that the most serious distribution issues were occurring further up the supply chain, in areas such as Northern and Eastern Ghana.
Through the PeaceTech accelerator, the startup obtained pre-seed funding from Hustle Fund in San Francisco and C5 Capital in London.
Jetstream co-founder and CEO Miishe Addy said, “We are creating digital infrastructure that will enable fragmented logistics providers to handle cross-border e-commerce and other time-sensitive physical goods trades rapidly.”
“Ghana serves as a crossroads for intra-continental trade as well as trade between Africa and other emerging economies. It is now home to West and Central Africa’s largest container terminal, which handles one million containers a year, as well as Africa’s newly implemented continent-wide free trade zone. Shippers can transfer cargo in and out of Africa’s more advanced ports in days rather than weeks. Jetstream co-founder and chief operating officer (COO) Solomon Torgbor remarked, “That speed is a magnet for regional trade.”
“What sets Jetstream apart is their understanding of the need to tackle more than a technical problem,” said AJ Okereke, a Golden Palm partner. “They are bringing logistics operators online by leveraging technology, partnerships, and a physical presence in the field to solve a fragmentation problem. Their work has the ability to offer high-level insights that cargo owners and logistics providers require in order to meet the demands of their own customers.”
Jetstream introduced trade finance in November 2020 for customers who are experiencing difficulties filling large purchase orders.
Jetstream has gained a lot of traction, indicating that Ghana’s recently modernized ports are a good area to start.
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