By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigerian startup, OnePort 365, a digital freight forwarding company that makes it easier to move cargo Africa, has raised $5 million in seed funding.
This will help the company to drive the end-to-end digitisation of freight management in Africa and support its expansion into new markets across the continent.
The round was led by Mobility 54, the VC arm of Toyota Tsusho and CFAO Group, with participation from SBI Investment, Flexport, ODX, a Singaporean syndicate fund and other strategic angel investors. Samurai Incubate also re-invested after participating in the previous round.
OnePort 365 has developed a freight forwarding platform that enables traders to efficiently and conveniently move cargo to, from and within Africa, providing complete transparency, visibility and control, minimizing cost inefficiencies and eliminating time and effort inefficiencies resulting from traditional supply chain management methods.
With active operations in Nigeria and Ghana, the startup is building an operating system for cross-border trade in Africa, and it is now better position, with the seed round, to support its efforts.
OnePort 365 is exploring expansion into new markets, a process this funding will support, while it also plans to deliver a wide range of new services that will increase profitability across the board.
Speaking on this, Mr Hio Sola-Usidame, CEO and founder of OnePort 365 said, “We are super excited to have these investors onboard to support our mission to optimise cross-border trading across the continent. With new regulations like the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement creating the potential for a new era of trade on the continent, we want to make it easier for traders to maximise the opportunity.
“We believe managing freights should be as easy as booking a flight or ordering a ride-hailing service and we are building the operating system to make this possible.”
Mr Takeshi Watanabe, CEO of Mobility 54 Investment SAS, said he was delighted to support the OnePort 365 team as it embarked on the journey of digitising the end-to-end freight management process in Africa.
“There is great potential to unlock significant commercial opportunities across the continent by addressing the longstanding challenges that have made it difficult to move freights into and around the continent, and we are confident that OnePort 365 has what it takes to succeed,” he said.
Dipo Olowookere