KWIK delivery startup gets Funding of $2 million

Kwik is a Nigeria & French-based startup that procures logistics services to B2B (Business-to-Business) merchants from social vendors to e-commerce platforms has raised $2million in series A funding.

XBTO Ventures led the financing session. XBTO Ventures is a crypto finance company with a VC branch that invests in digital assets, among other categories of startups. New and existing investors such as Humla Ventures, Nabuboto, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, and Pulse Africa founder Leonard Stiegeler participated in the financing session.

Kwik delivery takes advantage of a crowded logistics and delivery area with prominent providers in Nigeria such as Gokada and other parts of Africa like Egypt’s YDS and Bosta. Its last-mile delivery service unites businesses of numerous sizes to find self-sufficient delivery riders for the movement of their products to their business and individual customers.

According to the founder and CEO Romain Poirot-Lellig, his company wants to ”bring the informal economy into the formal economy,” focusing on last-mile delivery, e-commerce (warehousing and fulfillment), and financial services.

“Our goal is for Kwik to become the prime app choice for African social vendors and traditional merchants going digital. Integrating delivery, payment, and e-commerce tools seamlessly in one easy-to-use mobile app is a catchy proposition,” he said. “This financing round will enable us to expand across all three key verticals and select geographic areas.”

The company has made significant progress with providing last-mile delivery and e-commerce fulfillment services to traders. After its launching in Lagos in 2019 and expanding its existence to Abuja, the company has onboarded more than 100,000 traders who use Kwik’s site and mobile apps to operate the logistical, commercial, and monetary needs of their businesses. More than 75% are weekly active users, Poirot-Lellig said.

“We are not trying to build a customer super-like app. We want to do a merchant super app. We were building an app that merchants can use to run their online businesses, from selling to delivery to financing, said the CEO, who put €200,000 of his money into the startup in 2019.

“We are purely a software company. We create a community and a matchmaking playground. We ensure that we enforce the rules of the playground, both on the trader’s side and on the partner’s side.”

The company raised a $1.9 million seed round last March, takes an average commission of 20% for each delivery.

Kwik’s financial service, aviate toward the end of 2021 after it started payment services. According to the company, it represents an additional 10% of its GMV. But there's s more to be assembled around that, and the new investment helps fast-track improvement in that aspect.

“The financing part is the last part we're building. For the moment, we connect riders and financing institutions that are willing to finance bikes. On top of that, we're going to launch a B2B lending marketplace by the end of the year to enable merchants to get financing.”

The two-year-old company will also use the funding for consumer accession and finance operations across Nigerian cities beyond Lagos and Abuja-Ibadan, Kano, Port Harcourt, and Kaduna. Poirot-Lellig also said the company intends to expand the number of traders on its platform to 800,000 by the end of the year.