NIGERIA – Plentywaka, a mobility startup has announced, its change of name to Treepz as it seeks to align the company name with its Pan-African expansion plan.
According to the startup, the change of name would take effect immediately as it better represents the company’s vision of building the largest shared mobility platform across Africa.
“This name change is a result of in-depth discussions with our stakeholders, partners and staff. After we discovered that the term “WAKA” can mean different things across Africa, which may be completely different from travel or movement, we decided to change the name from ‘Plentywaka’ to ‘Treepz’ which is pronounced as ‘Trips,” Onyeka Akumah, Treepz CEO said.
He added that the name Treepz embodies everything that happens on the road, traveling across cities, within cities and it gives a cool vibe to the experience.
He also explained that Treepz states the company’s mission to provide safe, convenient and comfortable trips across Africa with plans for an expansion to 6 countries in 2 years.
In line with the name change, the startup has unveiled a new logo. Although its core service offerings will remain the same but with new names: daily waka is now daily Treepz, travel waka is now travel Treepz and corporate Treepz .
Plentywaka was founded in 2019 by Onyeka Akumah, Johnny Ena, John Shaibu, and Afolabi Oluseyi to provides ride-sharing services to its users on-demand. The company has two primary offerings, Travelwaka, for inter-state travel, and Dailywaka, for intra-state travel — via its app.
In August this year, the startup raised a US$1.2 million seed round to scale its operations, a month after participating the Techstars Toronto accelerator program.
The startup has also announced that it has fully acquired Stabus, one of Ghana’s leading mobility startups. This is a step to further Plentywaka’s ambition of building the largest shared mobility platform on the African continent, starting with West Africa.
This investment in Plentywaka attracted a wide range of investors from Canada, the United States, China and Nigeria. The Xchange, a Toronto based fund, led this seed round, while Techstars followed on their previous investment in Plentywaka to participate in the round as well.
Other investors include SOSV, the most active VC globally in the angel/seed deal type and ShockVentures, a VC from the United States. Nigerian investment firms who participated in the round include Argentil Capital Partners and ODBA & Co Ventures, an early-stage investor in Kuda Bank.
There were also a couple of angel investors from Canada, the US and Africa who also participated in the seed round to give Plentywaka the much-needed boost to continue its impressive growth.