Kenyan mobility startup BuuPass has landed a strategic investment from Yango Ventures, becoming the latest beneficiary of the newly launched $20 million corporate venture fund by global ride-hailing and tech conglomerate Yango Group. The deal signals both a significant boost for BuuPass and a broader pivot by international tech giants toward early-stage bets in Africa’s fast-evolving digital ecosystem.

Founded in 2016 by Sonia Kabra and Wyclife Omondi, BuuPass has quietly grown into one of the most important players in Africa’s under-digitised intercity transport sector. Its platform allows consumers to book buses, trains, flights, and parcel deliveries while offering operators back-office software for managing inventory, payments, and fleet logistics. By 2024, the company had processed over $70 million in bookings and sold 20 million tickets, working with more than 150 transport providers across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa.

Its acquisition of South Africa’s QuickBus last year, following a $1.3 million pre-seed raise in 2023, helped cement BuuPass’s footprint in key African travel corridors. The company’s mission is ambitious: to become the unified API that powers how Africa moves — whether by road, rail, or air.

Yango Ventures’ decision to back BuuPass aligns with that thesis. “Yango leans in with insight, not just capital,” BuuPass CEO Kabra said, alluding to the fund’s operational approach. While neither party disclosed the investment size, the partnership positions BuuPass to scale its infrastructure further and plug deeper into fragmented mobility ecosystems across the continent.

For Yango, the investment is more than a financial bet. It is a strategic opening move in what it hopes will become a long-term presence on the continent. Headquartered in the UAE, Yango Group has established operations across Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa — but its latest fund, Yango Ventures, explicitly prioritises Sub-Saharan Africa.

The fund will target startups from seed through Series B rounds, focusing on online-to-offline (O2O) platforms, B2B SaaS solutions, and fintech ventures. These sectors — where digital and informal economies often overlap — represent some of Africa’s most promising yet complex opportunities. From logistics to payments, local startups are increasingly building tools that combine software with real-world services, exactly the sort of hybrid innovation Yango Ventures says it wants to amplify.

“We are more than just a tech company; we are an ecosystem committed to empowering entrepreneurs worldwide,” said Yango Group CEO Daniil Shuleyko. “Through Yango Ventures, we’re sharing our expertise and network to help startups scale, thrive, and drive meaningful change in their communities.”

This “ecosystem” angle is crucial. Unlike traditional VC funds, corporate venture arms like Yango Ventures offer startups more than capital — they promise access to proven business models, global infrastructure, and experienced operators. In BuuPass’s case, that could mean deeper integration into Yango’s ride-hailing, logistics, and software operations — especially as urban and intercity mobility solutions begin to converge.

Yango is not alone in sensing opportunity. In 2023, inDrive — another international ride-hailing player — launched a $100 million venture and M&A arm focused on startups tackling systemic inequalities in emerging markets. Though Yango Ventures appears more sector-focused than mission-driven, its early emphasis on infrastructure and scalability may offer a stronger commercial alignment with high-growth startups looking for more than capital.

Still, competition for Africa’s most promising startups is heating up. As international capital flows into the continent, the challenge for funds like Yango Ventures will be to identify startups that not only address local pain points but can scale sustainably across fragmented markets. Africa is not a monolith, and solutions that work in Nairobi may require full rewiring in Lagos or Kinshasa.

Yet if early signs are anything to go by, Yango’s entry via BuuPass may be well-timed. Infrastructure players — especially those streamlining access to transport, payments, and logistics — are in high demand, as African startups increasingly take on the hard problems of scale and informality. The success of BuuPass may well prove whether foreign-backed CVC funds can enable, rather than disrupt, that journey.

For BuuPass, the new partnership marks another milestone in its quest to digitise mobility across Africa. For Yango Ventures, it’s a calculated first move. And for Africa’s tech ecosystem, it’s yet another signal that the continent’s builders are now being taken seriously — one bus ticket at a time.