South African shipping platform, TUNL, has raised an undisclosed amount of money in its seed round, which will be used to grow its marketing support for more than 1,300 SMEs.
The raise was led by E4E Africa and additional participation by Jonathan Smit, Jozi Angels, and Utopia Capital Management. TUNL received pre-seed funding worth US$1 million in December 2023 from Founders Factory Africa (now 54 Collective), Digital Africa Ventures, E4E Africa, and Jozi Angels. The TUNL platform saves SMEs and e-commerce exporters 50 to 80% in costs by utilizing AI classification tech and automated tax tools. “We’re proud to support TUNL’s mission to empower African SMEs to compete on a global stage. Their platform is a game-changer, levelling the playing field and enabling ecommerce merchants and other SMEs across the continent to access new markets solving the significant cost-logistics barrier,” said Tatenda Nyamuda, a partner at E4E.
The startup has registered progressive steps over the past year including enabling companies to target international customers in a better way. These include unlocking 10× growth in sales of dungaree brands from Bambalam and saving 30% of Versus Socks’ operational costs.
“We want to ensure that every business, large or small, can have an equal chance toconvert overseas sales. To do this we are reducing the costs and frictions of international shipping via our platform and tools,” said Craig Lowman, co-founder of TUNL.
“We invested early in TUNL because we’ve always thought that the problems they’re solving for South African merchants are global problems. We’re deep believers in what they’ve built so far and are excited for what’s next,” said Sam Sturm, co-founder at 54 Collective.
