Born into a Nigerian Logistics Empire Obinna Anyaegbu is now Leveraging Tech to Forge his own Path in Business

Obinna Anyaegbu is the first son of Chief Chidi Anyaegbu, a successful Nigerian business tycoon who amassed his vast wealth from his transportation and logistics business. In this interview with Business Elites Africa, he recounts his experience growing up in a family that was characterized by logistics and transportation, and how his father’s success informed his career path. Also, he discusses Chisco Express, a technologybacked startup he recently founded as part of his plans for the next growth phase of his father’s empire. Enjoy the conversation. People will like to know how your father’s success in transportation and logistics has influenced your decision to follow the same path.

Obinna: I was basically born into logistics. From a very young age, I got immersed in everything there is about logistics – driver management, fleet acquisition, spare parts, etc. I’ve basically been in and around the situation of logistics.

And I must admit that my father’s mastery and success in this industry through his company Chisco Transport have been a big influence on me. Right now, however, what I am most interested in is how logistics influences trade. That’s exactly why I established Chisco Express. We are using technology and leveraging data to build a platform/marketplace that will enable trade to happen seamlessly.

As you know, logistics is a driver for so many other aspects of the commerce value chain. For this reason, we are building on logistics which is our base. That’s what we have honed into, as our strength, over the past 35 years as a group.

Chisco Express is now coming along as the new kid on the block, backed by technology and bringing embedded services into the chain with our partners, all with the mission of consolidating everything Chisco Group has already done. With Chisco Transport, we already have on the ground over $25 million worth of logistics infrastructure across West Africa.

And that’s basically what we now want to build tech on top of. But then again, it’s beyond just building on what Chisco Transport already has on ground. It’s also about the other embedded services we are offering; about making it possible for other service providers to link into our technology and provide services to clients.

Tell us more about Chisco Express.

Obinna: Chisco Express was established around February 2020, shortly before COVID-19. It was a very rocky start for us. Our first load movement happened around March 14th when we transported instant noodles to the North and some cashew nuts back to the West. It was a very tough period, bearing in mind the security situation and the pandemic at that time. Fundraising was also very difficult. But we managed to surmount these difficulties. One thing is certain, and that’s the fact that logistics is a pandemic-proof business.

Now, what we are building at Chisco Express is more than just your typical logistics firm. We are building a technology suite that can afford clients the opportunity to not only transport their goods, but also monitor every stage of the transportation process and even get other embedded services such as loans, insurance, etc. It is truly a commerce enabler. And while it is not yet a perfect product, we are continually fine-tuning it to make it exactly what we envisioned it to be.

Thanks to Chisco Transport’s yearslong service to Nigerians and West Africans in general, Chisco Express now has a range of customers from the big companies to the SMEs and even individuals. And we are keeping it that way because we want to be able to tailor products for different clients, products that are best-fit for what they want. We already have the expertise to handle any freight from 0.5kg to 1000 tons.

And there are currently no other technology suites in the Nigerian market capable of this kind of varied service offering. There is none that I know capable of handling all aspects of freight forwarding and domestic freight movement at the same time.

Our service is all-encompassing, such that even if it’s a 0.5kg parcel you are expecting to be delivered, you can monitor the movement down to the bike man that will deliver it to your door-step. In the same vein, if you are expecting a product from overseas, you can track where it is, when it is coming down the ship and landing at the port, all the way till it gets to you.

But like I mentioned earlier, all of these have not yet been fine-tuned into one technology suite. But we are building. That notwithstanding, we already have about 50 businesses that we are constantly serving either through domestic freight or international freight. And we are tailoring our products to actually suit each of them.

What stands you apart from the other players in the tech-driven logistics space? Talk to us through your Unique Selling Proposition.

Obinna: Let me begin by saying that we at Chisco Express do not see competition. And I say this because I don’t think we are even scratching the surface as far as logistics demand in this market is concerned. The market is quite large. So, even if there are twenty of us competing, we still won’t be enough to meet the demand. We have a $102 billion addressable market size here in Africa. Even focusing on the top fifteen African markets alone, we still won’t be able to scratch the surface.

Now, because there are so many aspects of logistics, what obtains is that most people will focus on just one mode of transportation. Some people are focusing on trucking while others are focusing only on last-mile delivery. We, on the other hand, focus on facilitating the supply chain by all means. What our clients want is to move their products from Point A to Point B. And to do that for them, we make use of different modes of logistics; provided it is the smartest and most cost-efficient solution. Another reason why we are different is that we can actually tailor our solutions to customers’ needs, utilizing the infrastructure and physical network we have at our disposal. We also have a very robust and strong management and operations team.

We have in our team people who were former MDs of DHL, wonderful Board members with vast business experiences. With all these experiences and capabilities, we can easily execute service to our clients’ needs, whether they be Tier-1, Tier-2 or Tier-3 clients. That’s what makes us different. And we will remain committed to building the product so we can continually serve our clients better.”

Let’s talk about fundraising; what has your experience been like in this regard?

Obinna: Fundraising has recently been a very tumultuous experience. It was a lot easier some years back, say in 2016 and even 2018. In recent times,however, it has become more difficult, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Luckily for us, we have a lot of values that we’ve been leveraging in all these years that have enabled us to perform quite well.

Right now, however, we are currently in the middle of a Seed Round/Pre-Series A fundraising stage. The pre-seed round was completed successfully with investors very passionate about our story and where we are headed. There are a number of investors showing interest in the current round and we are quite excited. We plan to deploy the funding towards financing the next stage we are taking the company. For one, we need to rejig our network of terminals. We also need to ensure that every aspect of our technology is properly built out to ensure optimal functionality. All things being equal, we hope to finalise the fundraising round in the next three months.