Africa’s first home concierge platform expands service offering to include beauty services with strategic acquisition in Kenya
Eden Life, Africa’s first home concierge services scheduling platform, has acquired Lynk, the former technology company connecting informal workers to job opportunities across Kenya. The strategic acquisition, brokered by Enza Capital, sees Eden Life expand into Kenya and leverages Lynk’s successful platform that connected informal workers with end-users through automated job matching and standardised processes.
Launched in Nigeria in 2019 with a vision to connect busy professionals with concierge services, Eden Life offers its users a subscription service that delivers high-quality chef-cooked meals, laundry services, home cleaning, and a new additional beauty & wellness service for users in Nairobi. Available on Google Play and the App Store, the tech-powered ‘concierge of comfort’ aims to remove the barriers to finding reliable household services in Nairobi, building on its success in Lagos – where the service has an 80% retention rate during the course of the last twelve months with MoM growth at 15%. The app’s robust architecture has enabled Eden Life to deliver more than 150,000 services in Nigeria since launching.
As well as being able to select the specific chore they need carrying out, Eden Life’s user-focused platform allows users to continually give feedback on all aspects of service delivery from quality to user experience. The app has also been built to aggregate data based on customer preferences and offer suggestions based on prior experience, and includes additional features such as delivery time tracking, payments and billing, and user notifications that provide users with visibility and trust. The chores are overseen by “Gardeners” – the highly trained professionals who work with Eden Life service providers and end-users to ensure a seamless service.
Lynk was launched in 2015 and during its time in operation facilitated over 150,000 jobs, transferring US$ 4.5M to more than 2,000 workers across 4 main verticals – Beauty & Wellness, Cleaning & Care, Installation, Repair & Maintenance, and Furniture & Decor. Adversely affected by COVID-19 lockdowns in the past two years, the company’s key investor connected Lynk’s founders with Eden Life and coordinated a strategic acquisition – accelerating Eden Life’s expansion into Nairobi through Lynk’s established customer base.
Akinyi Ooko-Ombaka, Country Lead at Eden Life Kenya, commented: “It’s truly exciting to continue the phenomenal legacy of the Lynk platform and be part of the evolution in recreating smart-service delivery solutions for busy Nairobians to manage their work-play lifestyle. The combination of the technology that powered Lynk to empower informal workers and the data-rich Eden Life app presents an immense opportunity to grow not just the menu of services, but also the number of people who can benefit from the platform.”
Nadayar Enegesi, Co-Founder at Eden Life and Co-founder at Andela, added, “We’re thrilled to build on the incredible growth we’ve achieved in Nigeria and to bring the Eden Life philosophy to connect quality service providers with consumers in a whole new way. Combining our platform with the knowledge and market experience of Lynk is a real dream matchup and we’re excited to work with our new team of world-class colleagues.”
The post-pandemic working life has seen more people working longer hours, leaving them with limited time to get key things done around the home. Eden Life is focused on disrupting the home services market by making life easier for the chronically time-poor tech-native professionals and executives, allowing them to channel their time into more productive activities as well as affording them more quality leisure time.
“Lynk leveraged technology to pioneer an industry in East Africa that provided training, support, career growth and income for thousands of informal workers since inception, and we are enthusiastic about this development. Eden Life’s proven track record of delivering quality home services in Nigeria, while now leveraging on what Lynk has built in Kenya, reinforces the positive trend and opportunity that increasingly exists in major urban centres across Africa.” said Mike Mompi, General Partner at Enza Capital.
