Kune, a Kenya-based startup, has reportedly raised USD 1 million in pre-seed funding to unveil its ready-to-eat food meal service starting August. Launch Africa Ventures, a VC firm capturing the Africa market, initiated the pre-seed round. While Consonance and Century Oak Capital GmbH are other investors that participated in the round with ecosystem management company Pariti as a contributor.
Kune was founded in December 2020 by CEO Robin Reecht. The company provides fresh and ready-to-eat meals at affordable prices. Mr. Reecht arrived in Kenya from France in November 2020 and observed that it was difficult to get ready-to-eat meals at affordable prices.
He learned that it was almost impossible to get affordable quality meals. Street food is cheap, but it compromises on quality while food ordered from Glovo, Jumia, or Uber Eats is of good quality but unaffordable to the average population.
Reetch identified an opportunity in the meal sector and thought of starting Kune. He aimed at offering convenient, tasty, and affordable meals. He initiated his plans with a waitlist of 50 customers at a certain office space. Kune sold over 500 meals, each one priced around USD 4 and it successfully tripled its consumer base to 150.
The startup raised around USD 50,000 from customers who were delighted by the product. The CEO said that after a point, the company started receiving 50 orders daily and its small team couldn’t keep up with the growing volume of orders. Owing to this, the Kune team took a hiatus instead of using the growth momentum.
In the next months, the company went into the restructuring phase, building a factory and hired people to produce over 5,000 meals daily. Investors and customers were encouraged with the company's restart and in the span of two months, Kune closed one of the largest funding rounds in East Africa.
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