Food Startup Kune Raises $1m Pre-seed Funding to Serve Urban Kenya

Kune, a Kenyan food-tech startup that delivers freshly prepared fast food at affordable prices has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding to help it scale after a successful pilot.

French entrepreneur Robin Reecht saw a void in access to freshly prepared meals in the country’s capital Nairobi. And in 2020, he founded Kune is a food delivery startup innovating to solve the food preparation and delivery challenge at an affordable price.

Kune’s ready meals, which are aimed at people from all walks of life, promise to be at least half, if not three times, less expensive than usual restaurant and fast food prices. After a successful pilot in early 2021, the firm will debut its freshly prepared meals and on-demand delivery service in August, with the potential to serve up to 5,000 people a day in Nairobi’s working and middle classes.

“After three intensive months spent structuring the company, finding land for our factory, and hiring key team members, I started fundraising. I’m delighted that Kune has attracted this level of interest from investors who immediately saw the potential to grow Kune not only in Kenya but across Sub-Saharan Africa,” said Reecht.

All Kune meals are cooked and packaged on site at its manufacturing “hub,” and then delivered on-demand to both online and retail and corporate customers, based on a hybrid approach combining cloud and dark kitchen technologies.

Launch Africa Ventures led the pre-seed round, with Century Oak Capital GmbH and Consonance as anchor investors.

“Launch Africa is excited to be leading the first round of financing for this exciting new startup in the Kenyan food sector. Leveraging the cloud kitchen model and owning the entire supply chain provides a massive growth and scaling opportunity for Kune Africa, and we are looking forward to seeing the business take off and grow,” said Baljinder Sharma, director of Launch Africa Ventures.

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