Travel tech startup, Tripesa, has announced that it has received funding from various sources to enable the company to be able to digitize SMEs in the tourism sector in Arica.
Tripesa received investment in a pre-seed round backed by Eric Osiakwan, Future Africa, Consonance Investment Managers and LTNT Investments. The investment will support the company’s official launch in Uganda and Kenya before expanding to the rest of Africa.
Tripesa enables small business owners in tourism and hospitality to sell online and manage their entire business operations through their platform. The platform allows SMEs to build and manage a website, accept bookings and payments and access a customer relationship management dashboard.
Tripesa currently has over 260 tourism businesses in Uganda and Kenya on the platform.
David Gonahasa, co-founder and CEO of Tripesa, said “Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in tourism took a heavy blow due to C0VID-19 related disruptions in the past two years but Tripesa is leveraging technology to empower them with tools to help them recover much faster. The new normal for us is enabling small players run their businesses from anywhere and serve customers round the clock with our localized travel and financial technology platform”
Eric Osiakwan, founder of Chanzo Capital, one of the angel investors in Tripesa says “MSMEs are truly the engine of economic growth in Africa where in some countries like Ghana 85% of enterprises are MSMEs contributing about 70% of the country’s GDP. Our investment in Tripesa supports the development of the continent by unlocking the potential of MSMEs who often struggle with the complexity and cost of managing their business online and accessing source markets.”
Tripesa was cofounded in Uganda by David Gonahasa, Thomas Karugaba and Raymond Byaruhanga in 2020. It provides a platform as a service to SMEs in tourism with websites, itinerary builder, access to a multi-currency online payment platform and a customer relationship management dashboard.