Top 20 Travel Startup Investors in Kenya in May 2025
A list of 20 angel investors and VC (Venture Capital) funds that invest in Travel startups based in Kenya. We rank investors based on the number of investments they made in Travel companies from Kenya. We update this investor list every month.Top 20 Travel Startup Investors in Kenya in May 2025
Investor | Travel Kenya investments |
---|---|
54 Collective | 3 |
Federico Pirzio-Biroli | 2 |
Tim Draper | 1 |
Ian McCaig | 1 |
Klister Credit | 1 |
Norfund | 1 |
Five35 Ventures | 1 |
Gullit | 1 |
FrontEnd Ventures | 1 |
XA Network | 1 |
Ajim Capital | 1 |
daba | 1 |
Renew Capital | 1 |
Jim Villanueva | 1 |
Artha Group | 1 |
Savannah Fund | 1 |
Change Com | 1 |
Helena Riese Harstad | 1 |
Clear Creek Investments | 1 |
Darshan Chandaria | 1 |
Building and scaling African tech startups with catalytic capital, value-add support and our global network.
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Investment focus
- Health Care, Information Technology, FinTech
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Funding Round
- Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa
Portfolio highlights
- Billboxx — Enabling businesses pay and get paid twice as fast
- Yeah — Yeah is a financial technology company that offers payment processing services while building a credit profile for the banked and unbanked.
- Konnect — Konnect provides a cross borders payment solution intended to simplify complex financial flows allowing companies of any scale and size to send and receive payments in a practical, secure, and low-cost way.
Fede started out as an angel investor in 2010. His portfolio quickly grew, so he built a team around him and thus Playfair Capital was born. We have since gone on to become one of Europe’s most active and well-known early-stage VC funds. Before becoming a technology investor Fede worked for several NGOs in Africa, with a particular focus on aidtransparency. He recently renewed his focus on Africa by relocating to Kenya and becoming an angel investor in East Africa’s burgeoning startup ecosystem. He maintains an active role at Playfair and continues to lead our investment team.
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Investment focus
- Software, Venture Capital, Non Profit
- Seed, Angel, Pre-Seed
- United Kingdom, Kenya, Sweden
Portfolio highlights
- Bibblio — Conversion optimization, powered by AI. Increase user engagement, grow revenues and drive new audiences, for stronger site metrics and ROI.
- Brewbot — Brewbot is a multidisciplinary team of designers and developers based in Belfast, N. Ireland. They come from different backgrounds and experiences — music, design, code, and fine art — but they all share a common passion for brewing.
- Purple Elephant Ventures — We are Africa's first venture studio focusing on the travel & tourism sector. Our aim is to build businesses that will lead Africa's tourism industry to a greener future
Tim Draper is the Founding Partner of Draper Associates. He attended Harvard Business School.
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Investment focus
- Software, FinTech, Financial Services
- Seed, Series A, Series B
- United States, United Kingdom, Canada
Portfolio highlights
- QurieGen — QurieGen is a biotechnology company that accelerates drug discovery and development.
- Eywa — Founded in 2021, EYWA helps Web3 projects scale up by enabling them to operate, get listed, and traded on all connected blockchain networks with a single liquidity pool. Additionally, EYWA provides a truly decentralized data protocol for secure messaging.In partnership with Curve Finance, one of the largest decentralized exchanges, EYWA isintroducing a new paradigm of non-algorithmic cross-chain assets aimed at solving the problem of liquidity fragmentation. Their cross-chain protocol stands out as the most decentralized solution in the market.- Received 6 grants from biggest L1/L2 blockchain networks including NEAR Foundation, Aurora, Harmony One, Algorand, Boba Network, and others - Winning hackathons: Ethglobal Marketmake, Polygon’s BUIDL IT hackathon, Metis hackathon
- Aetherflux — Abundant and renewable energy, delivered virtually anywhere
Ian McCaig is the CEO of lastminute.com.
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Investment focus
- Travel, Tourism, Venture Capital
- Seed
- Kenya
Portfolio highlights
- Purple Elephant Ventures — We are Africa's first venture studio focusing on the travel & tourism sector. Our aim is to build businesses that will lead Africa's tourism industry to a greener future
Klister Credit is an investment and consulting corporation.
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Investment focus
- Analytics, SaaS, Infrastructure
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Funding Round
- Canada
Portfolio highlights
- WatrHub — WatrHub is a data and intelligence company that delivers predictive intelligence on infrastructure opportunities in the US and Canada. WatrHub is the only source of predictive market information on how, when, and why these water infrastructure investments will be made. Its AI engine transforms millions of public documents into actionable salesleads and market insights. Manufacturers subscribe to WatrHub to secure their next water utility clients and bring their advanced, efficient technologies to aging water infrastructure.It was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
- Sparrow BioAcoustics — Sparrow BioAcoustics ,developers of a smartphone stethoscope designed to gather and collaborate on medical-grade cardiac and pulmonary data.
- Purple Elephant Ventures — We are Africa's first venture studio focusing on the travel & tourism sector. Our aim is to build businesses that will lead Africa's tourism industry to a greener future
Norfund is the Norwegian Investment Fund for developing countries with 24.9 bill. NOK in total commitments (2019).
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Investment focus
- Financial Services, Energy, Renewable Energy
- Funding Round, Private Equity, Debt Financing
- Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria
Portfolio highlights
- OmniRetail — Get visibility of complete value chain and optimize processes end to end with our network of networks platform.
- Pele Energy Group — Pele Energy Group owns and runs renewable energy infrastructure in addition to providing economic and community development consulting services.
- Arnergy — ARNERGY's mission is to deliver energy solutions for productive use by deploying products, services and systems that power business operations and improve economic outcomes for our clients. Vision: Providing sustainable solutions to energy reliability issues across emerging markets.
With a decade-long track record of venture building alongside some of the smartest female-led founding teams in Africa, we back female-focused startups across
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Health Care, Wellness
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Funding Round
- South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria
Portfolio highlights
- Susu — Susu is a dynamic and innovative company that offers a wide range of health services for families in the African diaspora. Susu provides a complete offer on Preventive care, Medical treatments, Management of chronic diseases, and Authentic drugs.
- Kasha — Health products and household goods you want, delivered to where you are.
- Zuri Health — .ts-banner-image-1:hover .overlay{background-color:#ffffff} .ts-banner-image-2:hover .overlay{background-color:#ffffff} Popular categories Pharmacy Doctor at home Covid Labs & Diagonstics Wellness Telemed Show all Our Services PharmacyBuy both OTC and prescription medication and have it delivered to your doorstepLabs & DiagnosticsBook labs and Diagnostic tests and get your samples collected from the comfort of your home, hotel
Gullit advises and finances scalable early-stage tech firms in Africa. Additionally, Gullit provides funding for startups during the seed, pre-seed, debt acquisition, and restructuring phases.
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Investment focus
- Travel, Shipping, Logistics
- Seed, Pre-Seed
- Kenya, Morocco
Portfolio highlights
- Buupass — BuuPass is Kenya's market leader for online bus booking. We enable travelers to reserve seats and make payments in a convenient and timely way. Try BuuPass today!
- Logidoo — Logidoo is a digital logistics marketplace-designed company that markets shuttles through smart logistics. The company's platform, which provides rapid, dependable, secure, and economical logistics, allows users to compare offers for sending and receiving items and to track parcels in real-time.
FrontEnd is a strategic partner for innovative ventures offering support to diverse leaders with high market potential, proven traction...
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Investment focus
- Travel, Reservations, Public Transportation
- Pre-Seed
- Kenya
Portfolio highlights
- Twiva — Twiva is an influencer marketing and social commerce startup that gives Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) affordable, efficient, and digital access to markets. This is done by leveraging social media influencers to market and sell MSMEs’ products and services on social media platforms. Twiva was created to harness the vast penetration ofsmartphones, internet connectivity, accessible mobile banking, and the power of influencer marketing to create dignifying digital and digitally-enabled jobs.
- Buupass — BuuPass is Kenya's market leader for online bus booking. We enable travelers to reserve seats and make payments in a convenient and timely way. Try BuuPass today!
The investment network that fosters inclusive innovation by empowering the tech community in Southeast Asia. Our tech leaders help talented founders to build exceptional companies.
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Investment focus
- FinTech, Information Technology, Financial Services
- Seed, Pre-Seed, Series A
- Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam
Portfolio highlights
- HeyMax — Heymax.ai gives you a free trip every year by rewarding you with Max Miles. Heymax.ai doubles your favorite miles! heymax helps you find the best credit card to use anywhere you shop, and double dip to earn your preferred loyalty points and miles at 20+ airlines and hotels by shopping with our partners like Shopee, Lazada, Amazon, Apple,Trip.com, Singapore Airlines and so many more.For businesses, heymax.ai is a simple and efficient way to convert high-spending customers who like rewards on their terms.
- Beep Technologies — Beep is creating a universal, modular platform bridging the physical and digital divide, powering smart, contextual & interoperable connectivity across physical touchpoints whilst ensuring true customer privacy by leveraging on decentralised technology.
- Humble Sustainability — Humble Sustainability provides products and accessories reuse and recycle services.
We are investing in the next generation of exceptional African founders.
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Investment focus
- Travel, Lending, Hospital
- Pre-Seed, Seed
- Nigeria, Kenya
Portfolio highlights
- Buupass — BuuPass is Kenya's market leader for online bus booking. We enable travelers to reserve seats and make payments in a convenient and timely way. Try BuuPass today!
- Clafiya — Discover Clafiya: Your trusted digital health platform, uniting in-person care and virtual solutions for a personalized and caring healthcare experience. Embrace a healthier, happier you, with us by your side.
- Spleet — ProptechSpleet is an online marketplace for affordable residential rentals and rents financing in Africa. For the tenant, we simplify the rental process by providing flexible rental and payment options and eliminate bureaucracy and expediting the search process. For the landlords, we make renting quicker, safer and better by providing accurateinformation on the tenant and ensuring rental payments are made as and when due.
Provider of a fintech platform intended to access investment analysis and build wealth by investing in the African private and public capital markets. The company's platform offers an application for investing and trading the best African startups, stocks, and digital assets at once, enabling users to get all the latest news and curatedupdates in one place to maximize their investments.
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Investment focus
- Travel, Lending, Internet
- Seed, Pre-Seed
- Kenya, Nigeria
Portfolio highlights
- Buupass — BuuPass is Kenya's market leader for online bus booking. We enable travelers to reserve seats and make payments in a convenient and timely way. Try BuuPass today!
- Spleet — ProptechSpleet is an online marketplace for affordable residential rentals and rents financing in Africa. For the tenant, we simplify the rental process by providing flexible rental and payment options and eliminate bureaucracy and expediting the search process. For the landlords, we make renting quicker, safer and better by providing accurateinformation on the tenant and ensuring rental payments are made as and when due.
Renew Capital is an Africa-focused investment firm that addresses critical gaps for Africa’s growing businesses and connects them to a global network of impact investors.
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Investment focus
- Mobile Apps, Financial Services, Finance
- Pre-Seed, Funding Round, Seed
- Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia
Portfolio highlights
- Bosso — Bosso projects and realizes automation and robotic solutions for the growth of your business.
- Chpter — Chpter is a software development company that offers fast billing and checkout to help start, run, and grow a business.
- Level Africa — Digital Investment Marketplace for Africa
Jim Villanueva - Investment Director, Managing Director, Global Partnerships Social Venture Fund @ Global Partnerships
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Investment focus
- Agriculture, Energy, Travel
- Series A, Series B, Seed
- Kenya, Uganda, Zambia
Portfolio highlights
- Treasure8 — Through our commercial partnerships and USDA-patented dehydration technologies, Treasure8 transforms food streams and food waste into nutrient-dense elements that can be enhanced, shaped, shipped, and enjoyed almost anywhere and when needed most.
- Good Nature Agro — Their priority is to generate lasting income with small-scale farmers. They build local community leaders into qualified Private Extension Agents (PEAs) who oversee and train farmers throughout the growing season. They support PEAs to provide frequent trainings and personalized recommendations on how their growers can make their field healthier andmore productive. PEAs promote improved farm practices and deliver a farmer-friendly loan of seeds and additional inputs. At harvest, Good Nature is a guaranteed market for the certified legume seed that their growers produce. Choosing to produce these high-value crops over traditional cash crops - maize and cotton - more than doubles their income.
- Purple Elephant Ventures — We are Africa's first venture studio focusing on the travel & tourism sector. Our aim is to build businesses that will lead Africa's tourism industry to a greener future
Artha India Ventures' league of member Angel Investors mentor and invest in nascent ventures with business ideas that create value by participating in the entrepreneurial process. AIV have invested in more than 47 start-ups and has diversified portfolio ranging from last minute hotel bookings (HotelsAroundYou.com), to classes aggregators(FindUrClass.com), cosmetic ecommerce (Purplle.com) and at home salon services (The Home Salon). From microfinance credit rating platforms (Inventure) to online interview platforms (Talview), electronic repair & insurance companies (PickMeIndia.com), Cloud Telephone (Exotel.com) and Cab Aggregators (BookMyCab.com) the portfolio has it all.
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Investment focus
- Information Technology, Internet, E-Commerce
- Seed, Angel, Funding Round
- India, United States, Kenya
Portfolio highlights
- Futwork — With Futwork, learn for free and get a telecaller job. Find Work from Home jobs in India. Flexi hours & work suitable for freshers and women. Earn from home now!
- GetWork — Looking to hire top talent for your organization? GetWork is the platform for you! With a candidate pool of 1.9M+ job seekers, you can easily post your job and find the perfect candidate for your needs. Sign up today and start hiring with GetWork.
- KarmaLifeAI — KarmaLifeAI is an AI-powered digital solution for the financial well being of blue-collar gig workers and micro-business. The company allows the user to pay directly for key expenditures and smoothen their consumption patterns. It offers real-time access to credit for gig workers, based on their payroll account, through partnerships with thedigital platforms they work for. It operates an interest-free subscription model in which the platform or the gig worker can pay a flat fee and access credit equalling up to one-third of their monthly income. The company analyzes alternative data points and payment behavior over time to unlock higher credit lines for the workers.
Savannah Fund is a seed capital fund specializing in US$25,000-US$500,000 investments in early stage high growth technology (web and mobile) startups in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially focused on East Africa, the fund aims to bridge the early stage/angel and venture capital investment gap that currently exists in Africa. The Fund expects toachieve this objective by combining capital with mentor networks both in the region and from Silicon Valley via an accelerator program and a follow-on independent seed fund.The fund is managed by an experienced and technology savvy team that have founded companies or are actively involved in angel investing or having run successful accelerator programs in past but also understand the unique Subsaharan African environment. They are backed and supported by both local, regional and international networks of angels,venture capitalists whose expertise we can draw on to help startups succeed and scale to fully fledged regional or global companies.They believe in the potential for Africa to become a global technology innovator by creating sustainable for profit companies that create jobs and make an impact.
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Investment focus
- E-Commerce, FinTech, Information Technology
- Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
- Kenya, United States, South Africa
Portfolio highlights
- Oze — OZÉ brings African small businesses into the digital era. It is an app that makes it easy for businesses to track sales, expenses, and customer information. The data is analyzed to provide tailored recommendations, reports, and business education. If the entrepreneur needs a little extra support, an OZÉ Coach is just a click away. As they are usingOZÉ to manage their business and learn how to run it better, we are learning about them. Using this data and machine learning, we can predict their credit risk and provide them with affordable capital from our banking partners. With over 20,000 registered users, OZÉ is the largest online community of SMEs in Ghana. The most exciting thing is that OZÉ works; 97% of businesses that have used OZE for at least 9 months are growing or profitable or both!
- Root — Launch digital and embedded insurance solutions with omni-channel distribution.
- Afropolitan — Afropolitan is building a Network State to unleash the maximum potential of Africans around the world. Are you interested? Join us with your email.
Change Com AS is an Oslo-based advisory and investment company,founded by long-term Telenor research scientist, business developer and senior project manager Endre Skolt.
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Investment focus
- Travel, FinTech, Software
- Pre-Seed, Seed
- Kenya, Australia
Portfolio highlights
- Bosso — Bosso projects and realizes automation and robotic solutions for the growth of your business.
- Buupass — BuuPass is Kenya's market leader for online bus booking. We enable travelers to reserve seats and make payments in a convenient and timely way. Try BuuPass today!
- Aerotruth — Aerotruth is a B2B SaaS solution which automates the document on-boarding process for banks, financial institutions and fintechs
Helena Riese Harstad is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Optimizer Foundation. She previously worked at SBAB Bank as a Project Specialist. Helena Riese attended Stockholm University.
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Investment focus
- Travel, Tourism, Venture Capital
- Pre-Seed
- Kenya
Portfolio highlights
- Purple Elephant Ventures — We are Africa's first venture studio focusing on the travel & tourism sector. Our aim is to build businesses that will lead Africa's tourism industry to a greener future
CCI is a multi-stage investor that deploys capital as
a long-term, patient investor through a partnership approach to create value in portfolio companies.
We invest in companies across the Food, Water,
and Energy (transition & transformation) sectors via a lens of innovation and sustainability that drive climate solutions and climate resiliency.
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Investment focus
- Travel, Tourism, Venture Capital
- Seed
- Kenya
Portfolio highlights
- Purple Elephant Ventures — We are Africa's first venture studio focusing on the travel & tourism sector. Our aim is to build businesses that will lead Africa's tourism industry to a greener future
Darshan Chandaria is the Group CEO and Director of Chandaria Industries. He previously worked at Pentland Brands Plc as a Graduate Trainee. Darshan Chandaria attended Harvard Business School.
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Investment focus
- Software, B2B, Marketplace
- Seed, Pre-Seed
- Kenya, United States
Portfolio highlights
- Leta — Leta Technology is a software development company that creates supply chain and logistics software to enable the efficient and automated movement of goods.
- Bamba — Today, organizations spend a lot of money on physical data gathering exercises using old-fashioned paper-based methods. These methods result in expensive, severely delayed and incomplete data . With Bamba, a client can launch a data collection exercise anywhere in the world simply from the comfort of their web browser and the client can ensureindividuals respond with complete answers by paying those individuals for that data with mobile airtime in 122 different countries thus far.
- Cloud9 - Africa's Lifestyle Network — Cloud9xp.com is a online marketplace and booking service for leisure experiences.We believe that everyone deserves to have fun, feel good and be happy. We believe happiness starts with a drop, becomes a ripple and creates a wave. We believe happiness is amplified when shared.Put simply, Cloud9 is in the business of happiness and are passionateabout giving people more #HighOnLIfe moments.All of our products; across apparel, consumer electronics and lifestyle items are authentic, and we only work with the most upstanding, and energetic brands in the world to bring you the best possible products.
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