Recently updated on December 21st, 2020 at 01:42 pm
Kobo360 has been named Disrupter of the Year at the 2019 Africa CEO Forum Awards at the Kigali Convention Centre in Kigali, Rwanda.
In a statement on Tuesday (26 March), the Africa CEO Forum said the Lagos-based e-logistics startup received the accolade for registering “immediate and significant success” in a sector in which the forum said costs are higher in Africa than anywhere in the world.
Kobo360 was up against fellow nominees Jumia, Africa’s Talking, Baobab+ and Intouch for the award.
Kobo360 CTO Ife Oyedele founded Kobo360 in 2016 with CEO Obi Ozor. The startup’s elogistics platform aggregates end-to-end haulage operations to help cargo owners, truck owners and drivers, as well as cargo recipients to achieve an efficient supply-chain framework.
According to Ife Oyedele:
“We have spent the last two years fully focussed on executing, at scale, on the enormous challenge of moving goods around Africa — starting with Nigeria, but quickly expanding to Togo, Ghana and Kenya.
But it also acts as a catalyst for us to double down and refocus our attention on the task at hand; creating value to thousands of customers across Africa.”
In Nigeria, Kobo360 claims to cover 80% of the country and says it has recorded a 40% cost reduction in the supply chain. Since launch, the startup has partnered with Unilever, Honeywell, LaFarge, and the Dangote Group, moving over 297 million kilogrammes of goods and serviced over 1450 businesses with an aggregated fleet of over 10,000 drivers and trucks.
Last December, the startup landed a $6-million equity investment from the IFC. This was after closing a $1.2-million seed round led by US venture capital firm Western Technology Investment in June last year.
