Kenya-based Purple Elephant raises $1 million in pre-seed funding

• ByStartupStory     |    October 10, 2022

Purple Elephant Ventures (PEV), has raised $1 million pre-seed funding.They aim to build the next generation of startups that use technology to modernize the tourism sector. The venture studio plans to build about four startups every year at the intersection of tourism, climate and technology.

Klister Credit Corp., a Canadian investment firm, The Untours Foundation are some of the investors participating, and a number of angel backers including 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; Rich Hoops, executive director at Impact Capital; Jim Villanueva, managing director of Global Partnerships Social Venture Fund, and Helena Riese Harstad, co-founder and chair of the Optimizer Foundation.

CEO Ben Peterson, who co-founded the startup with Mikul Shah, and Jan van der Does de Willebois, in early 2020 — said- “I think what’s exciting for the team is all of the possibilities to digitize tourism for a greener future. And one of the great advantages of working in a studio is that we get to play around with new innovative ideas all the time. We have what we call ideation sessions, where we have very structured conversations around examining the tourism industry from the perspective of building businesses that will help reduce the carbon footprint of Africa’s tourism industry,” 

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