South African public transport data and technology startup, WhereIsMyTransport recently secured $1.85m in Series A funding to accelerate its expansion beyond its South Africa and London base.
The new funding, which is coming barely 18 months after a double seed round in 2017, was led by Liil Ventures, with support from existing investor, Goodwell Investments. Goodwell happens to be a long-time investor in Nigerian mobile payments startup, Paga.
"We are delighted to welcome Liil Ventures to our global team, alongside trusted partner Goodwell Investments. Liil is an investor experienced in our sector and a loud advocate for our market-leading technology," said Devin de Vries, co-founder and CEO of WhereIsMyTransport about the investment.
WhereIsMyTransport itself is barely 2 years old. Founded in 2016 to address the problem of poor mobility in emerging markets, the startup collects public transportation data and integrates this information on its open data platform, utilising visualisation tools such as digital mapping. Data for more than 30 major cities in emerging markets is said to be available on its platform.
Empowered by the new investment, WhereIsMyTransport will be spreading its offerings to India, South-East Asia and Latin America. The team will be hoping to leverage new investor, Liil's "significant go-to-market value in the Latin American market, and a complementary portfolio including Cabify and What3Words.”
Nadim Matuk Villazón, investment principal at Liil Ventures, said the investment firm was excited to back the startup and keep supporting resilience in emerging cities around the globe with reliable mobility data and technology.
“WhereIsMyTransport is a promising team of global urban innovators that helps governments in emerging markets to improve public transport networks and invest in better mobility services for everyone,” Villazón said.