Social Commerce Startup Kapu Raises USD 8 Mn Seed Funding

Kapu, a social commerce startup, coming out of stealth today having raised USD 8 Mn in seed funding, is hoping to help lessen the burden of buying food for Kenyan consumers. The seed round was co-led by Giant Ventures and Firstminute Capital, with participation from Founder Collective, Base Capital, Norrsken (Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth’s fund), and Raven One. They join Kapu’s early backers, including India’s Meesho and Brazil’s Facily co-founders, and a number of African family offices, Twitter’s Biz Stone, Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen, Tom Blomfield of Monzo and serial entrepreneur Alexander Rittweger.

Kapu founder, Sam Chappatte, former Jumia Group executive vice president, said the startup has since inception in January this year been building a B2C e-commerce service that enables consumers to buy groceries at lower prices, through online and offline channels. By sourcing directly from manufacturers and producers, Kapu enables group bulk-buying of groceries and claims to help consumers save up to 30% of the spend on fresh produce and packaged consumer goods.