The seed round raises the volume of funds already raised by Topship this year to US$3 million. With the funds, it intends to upgrade its infrastructure to “make the shipping experience in Africa as easy and stress-free as booking an Uber ride.” 

Nigeran startup Topship announced, Monday (May 16), the successful completion of a US$2.5 million seed round to expand its international presence. According to the Tweet announcing the event, the round was led by “Flexport, Ycombinator, Soma Capital, Starling Ventures, Olive Tree Capital, True Capital, Capital X and some amazing angel investors including Immad Akhund (Founder and CEO of Mercury) and Arash Ferdowsi (Co-Founder of Dropbox).”

“With this capital, we plan to invest in strategic partnerships and product innovation tailored to solve a myriad of shipping problems we’ve identified through daily interactions with our merchants,” the startup wrote.  

For Topship CEO Moses Enenwali,  the startup currently allows 1,500 merchants to send cargoes and parcels to over 150 countries. Following requests from merchants in Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya, the startup plans to launch operations in those markets. 

The coronavirus-spurred e-commerce boom trickled down on the freight market. Although there are actors already offering a mix of air and ocean freight services, Topship wants to focus mainly on the air freight in Africa because the continent is “not yet ready” for heavy cargo freight activities. 

“... We don’t have enough ports on the continent. For example, in Nigeria, we have one functioning port, and for ocean freight to work, we need ports, railways, and roads for trucking. But we don’t have the roads, and we don’t have the railways. [...] It’s difficult to connect the continent with ocean freight. [...] So what we’ve seen is the way to connect the continent is via air [since] every country and major city on the continent has a functioning airport, and airlines are flying to all those airports daily,”  Enenwali said.  

Ruben Tchounyabe