SafeBoda, which used to be called Guinness Transporters, has a handy app for smartphones that lets you call a motorbike taxi in East African cities.
It’s the idea behind a new ride-sharing app that aims to make public transportation in rural areas more reliable and easy to use.
SafeBoda is also a group of businesses and Boda drivers who are changing the way cities in Africa work by making it easier to pay for services and ask for them on the go.
Users of the company’s app can find safe and reliable moto-taxi rides because drivers are trained in things like road safety, first aid, bike maintenance, and customer service.
Its drivers get full training in things like how to deal with customers, fix bikes, and give first aid.
Each person in the motorbike is given a helmet and a disposable hair net to keep their helmet clean. The driver and each passenger also have two highly visible reflectors on their clothes.
Safeboda is the best company in Africa when it comes to safe, cheap public transportation in cities. It is an easy, safe, and mobile-first way for Africa’s growing number of young people to get around cities.
To improve the business as a whole, Safeboda is trying to increase the number of safe trips taken every day and make it easier to get from one place to another in cities.
They began in the middle of Kampala, Uganda, and have since grown to cover the whole continent.
How it Works
Once you’ve downloaded the Safeboda app, do the following steps:
- Enter your destination
- Get a fair price without bargaining
- Top up your wallet and ride cashless
- Pay with cash or credit and rate your driver
SafeBoda is not a transportation company and does not provide any kind of transportation service.
Whether or not a driver offers a ride to a User contacted through the SafeBoda App is up to the driver, and whether or not a User accepts a ride from a driver contacted through the SafeBoda App is up to the User.
After being matched through the SafeBoda App, it is up to each User to decide if they want to take the ride or not.
SafeBoda gives drivers and riders information and a place to meet, but it is not a transportation service and doesn’t try to be one. It also doesn’t take responsibility or liability for rides given by SafeBoda users on their own time.
Founders
Alastair Sussock
Along with being a co-founder, Alastair Sussock is also a co-CEO of SafeBoda.
He is very passionate about starting a business that fills a real need in the market.
For six years, he worked as an economic counselor for the government of Rwanda, a consultant for Dalberg Global Development Advisors, and an advisor for One Acre Fund in Ethiopia.
He also has a degree in economics from Oxford University.
Maxime Dieudonné
Maxime Dieudonne helped start Safeboda and is now running it as the CO-CEO.
He was always very careful because he came from a family of race car drivers. In Uganda, he made sure that you have to wear a helmet when you ride a boda.
Additionally, he has done a lot of work on M&A projects for both the One Acre Fund in Rwanda and Deloitte in Brussels.
He got his degree in economics and finance from the University of Leuven.
Rapa Thomson Ricky
Rapa Thomson Ricky was born in Northern Uganda, and he has always been an entrepreneur.
He used to work as a security guard and a boda driver. Now, he runs a business that gives tours of the city.
His care for the boda-boda riders in Kampala is impressive. He is now in charge of the group of drivers at Safeboda.
Investors & Funding Rounds
Allianz X
SafeBoda has finished a Series B investment round with an amount of money that is unknown. This money will be used to improve the platform and move into new markets.
The company has raised a total of US$1.1 million. Allianz X, the digital investment arm of the large financial services company Allianz Group, led a round of funding that helped the company get funding.
Allianz X has joined Go-Ventures, a venture fund in which GO-JEK is the anchor investor, to make its first investment in a business based in Africa. Allianz and GO-JEK already work together in Indonesia, which is GO-home JEK’s market.
Allianz wants to use its presence in the region and its knowledge of the area to help SafeBoda change Africa’s transportation, logistics, and payment systems.
Main Competitors
Little Limited: People in Kenya use Little, which is an app-based car service.
Citymapper: This is an application that maps public transportation in cities.
Kuaidi Dache: Kuaidi started in China, but it has quickly become the most popular app for car services everywhere.
Related:
Kudi: Story, Founders, Investors & Funding Rounds