The Kenya based transportation & mobility startup Maramoja Transport at its scaleup & growth stage is solving three problems:
People want a taxi nearby when they want to go
People want the comfort/luxury of a personal driver at the cost of a normal taxi
People want to deal with people they can trust
Maramoja built an app which enables users to get curated drivers that users know/like/trust directly or through their network and enable drivers to OWN their customers through the platform.
According to Statistica the ride hailing sector in Africa will be worth US $5.4B by 2024 from US $2.2B in 2020
Maramoja's plan is to expand to Africa's top 1000 cities covering 85% of the continents populations via a hybrid franchise model- this strategy is capital light while it opens access to the long tail of the continent and leverages the continent’s wealth of entrepreneurial energy while their competitors primarily grow centrally (which creates internal competition for capital) and focus is on Africa's top 15 cities covering only 6% of the continents population. On the top 1000 cities their plan is to bring the full product portfolio closer to the users and on the top 15 cities their plan is to focus on their key niches including MARAMOJA for Corporate and MARAMOJA for Schools where they have build advantages.
They have grown 220%+ year on year and last year, they generated US $300K in revenue and H1 2021 and generated US $380K which is 100%+ YoY growth and over 230% growth compared to a similar period the previous year.
They currently have US $2.27M in annual corporate contract value as at Q1 2021 and great lessons.
They launched MARAMOJA for Schools in May 2021 and have already generated US $30k in revenues, has 100% retention rate and 150% growth school term over term
NEW PRODUCTS:
Maramoja licensed the Distribution (Water) Market place in H1, 2021 and generated US $50K in license and service fees and have a US $5K paid up commitment fee for Logistics Platform license. They have 30K+ vetted and registered drivers and 70k+ registered users in the platform in two cities Nairobi and Mombasa.
Maramoja has a stellar team among whom have previously worked together and have entrepreneurial experinces. Their team consists of:
Ronald Mahondo (Co- Founder, CEO) has 14+ years’ experience in leadership roles across the region. He has spent the last eight years building mobility platforms across East Africa; and before that held leadership positions in Oil and Gas and Finance industries where he had annual budget responsibilities of up to US$ 10M CAPEX, US$ 100M OPEX.
David Njenga (Head of Business Development) has 8+ years of experience building relationships, previously worked with Easy Taxi. He holds a Bachelor's’ degree in Economics specializing on Micro Economics from Makerere University.
Ndungu Mbiu (Head of Engineering) has 10+ years’ experience building web apps and mobile applications. His specialty is in building back end infrastructure. He is also competent in system design and infrastructure management. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
Laura Atieno (Head of Operations) has over 10 years’ experience and is one of the organizations’ early employees- she has grown through the years and is responsible for overseeing MARAMOJA’s business operations
Zakia Mohamed (Head of Driver Supply) role is to oversee the day-to-day management of our driver supply. Her roles include managing the driver community and ensuring their success. She is among the organizations founding team
Dr. Bastian Blankenburg (Co- Founder, CTO, Board Member) brings more than 20 years’ experience in distributed AI, multi-agent systems, trust algorithms, and transportation sector technology. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science. He previously spent several years at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, exploring negotiations in multi-agent systems.
Jason Eisen (Co- Founder, Group CEO, Board Member) spent nine years leading strategy, program design, and project development with budgets of up to US$ 100M across multiple sectors in 40 countries. He has helped secure more than US$ 3B in funding for various development projects.
As Maramoja scales and from their seed / round A to raise $1.5mils they intend to solve their team risk by filling the following positions:
Head of Legal, Operations Director, Growth Director, CFO, Head of Marketing, Head of Business Intelligence, Product Manager.
As well as grow Monthly Mobility Revenue from Kenya Operations to US $500K- With gross margins above 20% & combined with revenue from merger, Maramoja forecast ~$6M ARR by June ‘23 Launch at least 10 new mobility franchises across 10 new cities in 10 new countries.
Diversify by deploying additional Products in existing and new markets- Deployment of the Logistics and Distribution (water) Marketplaces through license agreements in existing and new markets, Maramoja will be able to demonstrate their growth model further into new use cases and verticals in areas where their traditional competitors have not focused.
Increase Platform Value by distributing VAS (value added services)-By distributing financial services, insurance, emergency and other value added services through the platform, Maramoja is able to increase access to these services to its users including hard to reach population using their platform in the continent.
With such a business model, strategy, and team that is capable of delivering on growth we wouldn't be surprised if they become the next big acquisition in Africa by Uber or SWVL, not mention Bolt the very strong competitor struggling Uber.
Keep updated on what they are doing and what they are up to through their website and social media channels:
Don't hesitate to give a shout to their CEO; Ronald Mahondo if you have any ideas or synergies in mind. They are open to collaboration, partnerships, and investors.
You can contact him directly on ronald@maramoja.co.ke or pickup your phone or Whatsapp to +254721542377
Maramoja were present at DSRPTD 2021 which took place on the 25th to the 27th of October in Dubai, UAE, ensuring the maximum return on investment for the participating startups, scaleups, investors, corporates, VCs, and governments. learn more at dsrptd.net/blog .
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