Senegal-based logistics and delivery company, PAPS has raised a $4.5 million pre-Series A round led by 4DX Ventures and Orange with contributions from existing funds Uma Ventures and Saviu Ventures and new investors Yamaha Motor, LoftyInc Capital, Proparco, Google Ventures, To.org, Kepple Ventures, and Enza Capital.
The company will deploy the fund into expanding its operations across the Francophone regions. It will also invest in infrastructure build more warehouses, increase its hubs and fleet while also strengthening its tech team.
Founded by Bamba Lo in 2016, the company provides end-to-end logistics solutions for businesses with offline and online operations. PAPS also helps big and small businesses with their logistics needs ranging from storage facilities to international transport to last-mile delivery.
The company also provides merchants with visibility features to track and know the status of deliveries from takeoff to the point of destination. Merchants can also schedule deliveries on the platform.
Bamba Lo in a phone chat with Techcrunch said, “When we launched PAPS, the first thing we wanted to give to our clients was visibility on their transactions, they had to know when the driver has picked their goods up, where the goods are during transit, and when it arrives. So that’s what we are trying to do to build — an infrastructure that can serve all B2B clients from warehousing and dispatching to the last-mile delivery.”
PAPS claims to be the biggest last-mile fleet in Senegal having made over 10 million deliveries across two markets since inception.
Walter Baddoo, co-founder and general partner at 4DX Ventures, said, “We have been impressed with the Paps team’s execution thus far and their dedication to creating a truly innovative business in the logistics space. We believe technology has a critical role to play in modernizing Africa’s logistics infrastructure and we look forward to further partnering with Bamba and the paps team on this next phase of their growth”.
PAPS serves a wide range of clients from various industries including pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and banking.
