Rwanda’s Kasha is the latest startup from the country to make African headlines after it raised a $21 million Series B funding round to help it expand across the continent.
Founded in 2016, Kasha operates as a digital retail and last mile distribution platform specializing in pharmaceuticals and fast-moving consumer goods. Its primary focus is on providing consumers, resellers, pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics with genuine, high-quality, and affordable products.
Kasha also serves enterprises as a channel partner. It achieves this by leveraging its sales and last mile distribution network, data analytics, and e-health services. Through these capabilities, Kasha enables pharmaceutical manufacturers and global health organizations to enhance access to quality health products.
The above is achieved through:
- Effective marketing strategies
- Valuable consumer insights, and
- End-to-end distribution visibility, extending all the way to the last mile
Kasha’s funding was led by Knife Capital, a pan-African venture capital firm based in South Africa. Other notable participants in the funding round include:
- Knife Capital
- FinnFund
- DFC (U.S. International Development Finance Corporation)
- Altree Capital
- Tim Koogle
- Pam Scott
- Beyond Capital Ventures
- Bamboo Capital’s BLOC Smart Africa Fund
- Five35 Ventures
Kasha is said to be experiencing significant growth in Kenya and Rwanda, and recently initiated its operations in South Africa. Moreover, the company has plans to expand further into West Africa later in 2023. To support its expansion and strengthen its position in the market, Kasha is utilizing the funds from the Series B round to make substantial investments in its digital platform and enhance its enterprise services.
“Having reached this major milestone of closing our Series B, we are even more inspired and determined to achieve Kasha’s mission of being Africa’s leading digital platform for last mile access to health,” said Joanna Bichsel, Founder and CEO of Kasha.
In July 2023, another Rwandan health startup, Eden Care, a digital health insurance startup, became the first Rwandan startup to join Y-Combinator, the highly-acclaimed accelerator program. Eden Care will join the 2023 Y-Combinator summer batch (YC S23).
African fintech giant, Flutterwave, has also indicated plans to establish a central hub for payment operations in the East Africa region in Rwanda.
“We’ve got plans to have a financial operations centre set up in Rwanda where all our settlement across the region goes from here. Everyone has supported us to make that happen. So it makes sense to put something in this market and scale it from here,” said Olugbenga Agboola, CEO, Flutterwave.
“It’s not about the size of the market, it’s about market readiness. They’re ready here.”
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