Jumba, a Kenyan construction tech startup, has raised $4.5 million to scale its operations across the country. The funding round was led by LocalGlobe, with participation from Enza Capital, Foundamental, Seedstars International Ventures, Logos Ventures, SpeedInvest, First Check Africa and Alumni Angel Network.
With the $1 million raised in a pre-seed round last year, this brings total raised since inception to $5.5 million.
Launched in April 2022 by Co-founder and CEO Kagure Wamunyu and Miano Njoka (CTO), Jumba is a construction technology company that simplifies the purchase and supply of construction materials in a click of a button. Jumba provides an integrated platform where construction material retailers (hardware store) can easily place an order and receive the goods on time and at competitive price. The construction companies work with Jumba for a one stop supply of all their construction materials.
Jumba currently covers about 60% of the country and is expanding to keep up with the growing demand of construction materials. The startup claims to have recorded three times quarterly growth at the close of last year.
Wamunyu says that the startup is growing very fast, and its problem has always been that it has way more demand than it can meet.
“Most of our customers are in counties beyond the capital, Nairobi, and the reason is that manufacturing is centralized in Nairobi, but customers are located throughout the country, and that is where we come in because we help with distribution,” she stated in an interview with Techcrunch.
The Kenya construction market size was valued at $16.6 billion in 2021 and is expected to achieve an AAGR of more than 5% during 2023-2026. The forecast-period growth in the industry will be supported by investments in transport, electricity, housing, and manufacturing projects. The county will also benefit from the government’s plan to build 10,000 housing units.
Jumba also solves the financing headache for retailers through its short-term financing service backed by its bank partners, with plans underway to avail long-term credit to developers too.
“Retailers can access financing through services like buy-now-pay-later from our bank partners. Construction sites will also have the ability to get the materials to complete the works in the near future,” said Wamunyu adding that, “We put a lot of emphasis on understanding the customer, and what they need, their pain points, and then tailor our products to fit them. We are doing this so that we can unlock access, and cash flow.”
“With our B2B marketplace our vision still remains verticalization in construction, and solving the problems in the sector. Kenya will remain our core market, the opportunity is massive here. We plan to scale in this market to acquire more customers before we explore the next market,” she said.
