Humble beginnings seem to have finally paid off and perhaps a lesson to startups still in their infancy stage. Lagos-based ride-sharing service Shuttlers that enables users to book trips along fixed routes after years of bootstrapping the company has raised $1.6 million in seed funding from several investors to blitz scale within and outside Nigeria to expand to cities such as Abuja and Accra, and is on a mission is to provide shared-mobility solutions in Metropolitan cities in Africa.
Among some of the investors, were Chicago and Africa-focused investment firm VestedWorld led the round. Fintech unicorn Interswitch, Africa-focused VCs Rising Tide Africa, Launch Africa, EchoVC, Consonance Investment, CcHub Syndicate, CMC 21 & Alsa, ShEquity, Five35, Sakore, and Nikky Taurus also participated in the round.
Shuttlers CEO Damilola Olokesusi said in a statement: “Our mission is to transform the way people commute around the world by building a global partner network and connecting communities of shuttlers like we are presently doing in Lagos, Nigeria.”
Shuttlers
Damilola Olokesusi is the Co-founder and CEO of Shuttlers and in 2015, Olokesusi and her friends — Damilola Quadry and Busola Majekodunmi — were frustrated by the stress of commuting in Lagos, Nigeria. And following some nasty experiences, they decided to start Shuttlers. So Shuttlers was founded to address the issue of inefficient transportation costs in Nigeria’s most renowned urban city, Lagos and via its ridesharing platform, it provides companies with better mobility options for their employees.
When Shuttlers launched in 2017, it did not have a functional mobile application. Instead, the company ran an unconventional online model using Slack, email, and WhatsApp to communicate with its customers. Yet, that was enough to onboard its first set of business clients. And can you imagine, tech talent unicorn Andela was Shuttlers’ first B2B2C client.
The B2B2C plan is one of three main offerings Shuttlers providers; here, companies split payment of transport fares with their employees whichever way they see fit. The others include B2B, where business clients pay the complete fares of their employees, and B2C, where individual customers pay fares themselves.
Despite raising just ₦3 million (~$6,000) from friends and family and grants since 2016, Shuttlers’ growth has been staggering. The company claims to have over 10,000 users across its mobile app and website users. Five years in, Shuttlers is not only profitable while raising money and making expansion plans; it is also concerned about fostering its environmental impact.
The latter is evident in a recent survey Shuttlers recently conducted where almost 30% of its daily commuters own cars. In essence, the company, in its little way, is reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that those commuters would have otherwise emitted if they used their cars daily.
