The Kenya based Bwala Africa Group, which is a last mile logistics marketplace designed to help fleet owners in Kenya on a daily basis has recorded more than 6000 deliveries in the country. It has also secured debt financing from South African bank, CFC Stanbic to meet the rising demand for last mile fleet connectivity.
Bwala Africa is rolling out 8 new trucks, four of which are directly funded by CFC and the other 4 funded internally by Bwala with Ksh 24m debt financing, bringing the cost of total invest to Ksh 23,000,000. The terms of the debt financing were not disclosed.
Kennedy Nyabwala, Bwala Africa Group founder and CEO said “We have landed 3 major partnerships with Kenya’s top retail stores to power their last mile deliveries. The partners include Copia, Naivas and Jumia which are by far the biggest retail and ecommerce brands in Kenya.”
“We are also doing collections, through BwalaPay, our escrow system. We have so far collected over Ksh 7 Million for our various last mile customers. BwalaPay allows customers to pay on delivery and the seller on the other will either get cash when the item is sold / return of the package, if not sold. This has solved a big pain on online fraud.”
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BwalaPay service will also be extended to other online business entities dealing with skeptical customers.
“Bwala Africa is working on crowdsourcing logistics service providers to fleet owners and connect them to auto garages and mechanics around the country.”
The firm is also working on its on-demand last mile retail logistics section for its B2B and B2C customers in e-commerce and distribution.
But that’s not all, they are also working on a 12,000 sqm warehouse to consolidate the orders for various retail needed to ease delivery. The firm also planning to expand into Uganda, Zambia, Ghana, Zimbabwe and South Africa as well as in some Asian countries like Bangladesh, India and Philippines.
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