Mobility 54 Investment SAS ("Mobility 54") - established in October 2019 under a group joint venture between Toyota Tsusho Corporation ("Toyota Tsusho") and CFAO SAS ("CFAO") - has decided to participate in the series B funding and to invest USD 7.6 million in Sendy Limited ("Sendy") engaging in logistics digital platform services in Africa.

While the logistics market in Africa has been expanding due to economic development and population increase, Sendy is engaged in the digital platform services in East Africa directly connecting consignors of goods (i.e. consumer goods manufacturers, e-Commerce operators, etc) and logistics operators (i.e. drivers of trucks, motorcycles, transporters etc).

The Sendy’s digital platform enables efficient delivery operations as well as cost reduction by eliminating intermediaries and negotiation of terms of delivery services (i.e. pricing, destinations, delivery dates etc) that the consignors and operators each time had to tackle on a case-by-case basis.

It also drastically improves the transparency and safety of delivery operations by which the platform enables real-time tracking of delivery status – leading to solve the traceability challenge that the logistics industry in Africa has long been struggling.

The investment in Sendy by Toyota Tsusho Group is in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding entered into by and between Sendy and Toyota Tsusho at the time of TICAD7 at the end of August 2019.

Toyota Tsusho Group is committed to support the Sendy’s business expansion with Kaizen initiatives on the ground. The group will also engage in facilitating the use of Sendy’s services with the group’s Pan-Africa automotive network, consumer goods and retail operation, agricultural operation etc, generating mutual synergies between Sendy and the group.

Toyota Tsusho Group is to pursue the MaaS/CASE business in Africa through Mobility 54 based upon its mid-term strategy of “Africa” and “Next Mobility”, so as to contribute to solving the social challenges in the mobility industry in Africa.