Crux: Kenya-based Purple Elephant Ventures has raised $1 million to digitize Africa’s tourism industry and make it more climate-resilient.
A Kenya-based venture studio, Purple Elephant Ventures, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to build the next generation of startups that use technology to modernize tourism for a greener future.
Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV) aims to lead Africa’s tourism industry to a green future by building a portfolio of start-ups at the nexus of climate action and tourism.
The venture studio plans to build about three or four startups at the intersection of tourism, climate and technology, every year. PEV startups are generally scalable, tech-first solutions that support efforts to make Africa’s tourism industry more climate-resilient and sustainable.
The venture was founded by social entrepreneur and venture capitalist Ben Peterson Ben Peterson, serial entrepreneur Mikul Shah, and former investment banker Jan van der Does de Willebois in early 2020 just before the COVID pandemic.
“We’re sitting on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to modernize a major continental industry while driving real climate-action victories,” says CEO Ben Peterson.
Why: The company decided to focus on tourism because only a handful of startups have explored the possibilities in the tourism industry which is one of the largest sectors on the continent and a significant driver of Africa’s economy. “We decided that the industry could benefit from dozens of start-ups each addressing different major challenges – so we built PEV,” Peterson said.
The funding round was led by The Untours Foundation and Canadian investment firm Klister Credit Corp. Angel investors who participated included Fede Pirzio-Biroli, founder of Playfair Capital; Ian McCaig, former CEO of lastminute.com and M-Kopa board member; Anthony Rock, president of Rock Impact Capital; Helena Riese Harstad, co-founder and chair of the Optimizer Foundation; Rich Hoops, executive director at Impact Capital and Jim Villanueva, managing director of Global Partnerships Social Venture Fund.
