B2B travel technology startup, Tripesa, has closed a pre seed round with participation from Eric Osiakwan, Future Africa, Consonance Investment Managers and LTNT Investments to support the company’s go to market in Uganda and Kenya before expanding to the rest of Africa.  

Tripesa enables small business owners in tourism and hospitality sell online and manage their entire business operations on a simple no-code platform. The platform allows a micro and small to medium sized enterprise (MSME) in tourism with no technology background 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. These companies are spearheading the new normal for Africa’s $35 billion annual market that employs over 24 million people across multiple sub-sectors like tour operators, travel agencies, tour guides, car hire companies, curio shops, museums, events, small hotels and restaurants.

David Gonahasa, co-founder and CEO of Tripesa, said “micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in tourism took a heavy blow due to Covid-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 said “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 is a business automation platform digitising the operations of MSMEs and linking the tourism value chain in Africa.

The company cofounded in Uganda by David Gonahasa, Thomas Karugaba and Raymond Byaruhanga in 2020 provides a platform as a service to MSMEs in tourism with no-code websites, itineraries, access to a multi-currency online payment platform and a customer relationship management dashboard.