Source: Tom Jackson/ Disrupt Africa
South African mobility startup WhereIsMyTransport has closed down after failing to secure the necessary funding to continue operating.
Formed in 2016, WhereIsMyTransport is a big data platform for sustainable mobility in emerging markets, which connects and collects data and integrates this information on its open data platform.
Its products are used by cities to coordinate and monitor services, operators to integrate their systems, and passengers, who access the platform through apps and endpoints connected to the WhereIsMyTransport platform.
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The company, which was active in South Africa and Mexico, raised a US$14.5 million Series A extension round from investors including the now-defunct Naspers Foundry, taking total funding to more than US$27 million, but has now reached what founder Devin de Vries described in a LinkedIn post as “journey’s end” after failing to secure further capital.
WhereIsMyTransport is the latest in a host of well-regarded and well-funded African startups to have closed down this year amid a fall in liquidity within the global venture capital market. Kenya’s Sendy, Nigeria’s 54gene and Ghana’s Dash are other well-known closures.
“During our scrappy bootstrapped days in our garage – surrounded by friends – I never conceived all the places we would go. Graduating from that garage, we raised our first funding eight years ago. In the time since we grew to 140 strong, distributed over 22 countries. All-in-all we numbered 200 employees, supported by thousands of gig-mappers, enabling transit data in over 50 cities across four continents. Our products served millions of consumers, and supported customers to reach tens of millions of transit users,” de Vries said.
“Having failed to raise our round, we’ve stopped operations. Thank you to the investors who backed us along the way – without you our work would not have been possible. Thank you to the team who gave the best of themselves to support our mission to ‘empower people everywhere to get where they want to go’ – your passion and commitment drove me.”
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Source: Tom Jackson/ Disrupt Africa
