NAIROBI, Kenya, OCT 7 – Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV), a Kenyan-based tech studio with a focus on the travel industry has raised Sh120.9 million ($1 million) from international investors to build tech driven tourism start-ups.
The funding round was led by The Untours Foundation and Canadian investment firm Klister Credit Corp.
Angel investors who also participated were lastminute.com and M-Kopa board member former CEO Ian McCaig Rock, Impact Capital president Anthony Rock and Playfair Capital founder Fede Pirzio-Biroli
Others being Impact Global Partnerships Social Venture Fund managing director Jim Villanueva, Capital executive director Rich Hoops, Optimizer Foundation co-founder and chair Helena Riese Harstad.
The firm told TechCrunch, an online American news platform for tech, that it will use the money to build four start-ups with a focus on tourism, climate and technology.
“I think what’s exciting for the team is all of the possibilities to digitize tourism for a greener future. And one of the great advantages of working in a studio is that we get to play around with new innovative ideas all the time,”
“We have what we call ideation sessions, where we have very structured conversations around examining the tourism industry from the perspective of building businesses that will help reduce the carbon footprint of Africa’s tourism industry,” the firm CEO Ben Peterson told TechCrunch.
PEV was co-founded in 2020, by CEO Peterson, Mikul Shah as well as Jan Van der Does de Willebois.
PEV runs four start-ups such as Nomad Africa, Nomad Travel Guide, Elephant Bookings and Wavel.
Whereas Nomad Africa is a eco-focused content-to-commerce magazine, Elephant Bookings offers an online booking platform for safari lodges.
