Bwala Africa Group, a last mile logistics marketplace has secured KSh10 million financing from Stanbic Bank to venture into last mile logistics.
With the Ksh 24m debt financing, Bwala Africa will roll out 8 new trucks from ISUZU East Africa, four directly funded by CFC and the other 4 funded internally by Bwala, bringing the cost of total invest to Ksh 23,000,000. The terms of the debt financing were not disclosed.
“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 e-commerce brands in Kenya,” said Kennedy Nyabwala, Bwala Africa Group founder and CEO.
“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.”
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.
“We have managed to cover most parts of Nairobi and are expanding across counties in Kenya. We started with trucks but quickly realized that motorbike delivery were in high demand due to their speed and efficiency,” added Nyabwala.