Venture studio based in Kenya with a focus on tourism, Purple Elephant Companies (PEV) has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to drive innovation in tourism in Africa.
The venture capital studio seeks to achieve this goal by building creative startups from the ground up focused on harnessing technology to scale tourism, as it plans to create approximately four startups at the intersection of travel each year. , climate and technology.
Investors who participated in this recent round of $1 million pre-seed funding include Klister Credit Corporation, a Canadian investment firm, and the Untours Foundation.
Also angel investors such as Fede Pirzio-Biroli, founder of Playfair Capital; Ian McCaig, former CEO of lastminute.com and board member of M-Kopa, Anthony Rock, chairman of Rock Impact Capital; Rich Hoops, Executive Director at Impact Capital; Jim Villanueva, Managing Director of Global Partnerships Social Venture Fund, and Helena Riese Harstad, Co-Founder and President of Optimizer Foundation.
Speaking on the recent fundraising and start-up mission, Purple Elephant Ventures CEO Ben Peterson said: “I think what’s exciting for the team are all the opportunities to digitize tourism. for a greener future. And one of the great things about working in a studio is that we can constantly play with new, innovative ideas.
“We have what we call ideation sessions, where we have very structured conversations about looking at the tourism industry from the perspective of creating businesses that will help reduce the carbon footprint of the tourism industry in Africa.”
He further revealed that despite the uncertainty in the tourism sector during During the Covid pandemic period, the Purple Elephant Ventures team did not slow down their efforts, rather they launched two startups during this period, which are Elephant Bookings, a Software as a Service (SaaS) product, and Nomad.Africa, a content-commerce magazine.
Purple Elephant Ventures seeks to enable startups in the tourism sector to raise enough capital to facilitate sustainability, as well as have an online presence to help globally.
Founded in 2020, the company’s mission is to build a portfolio of innovative businesses that unlock the unparalleled economic power of tourism to protect and grow Africa’s natural capital.
