Travel App Built For The Black Diaspora Secures $1.3M Pre-Seed Round

BRDRS, a fintech app designed for African and Caribbean diasporal travelers, has raised $1.3M in a Pre-Seed funding round. The app, which is the first of its kind, offers several features, including cross-border connectivity, a multi-currency digital wallet, and BRDRS Connect, which lets you buy and activate a local eSIM.

POCIT sat down with CEO and co-founder Joy Martins to discuss how the app will serve the Black diaspora, the importance of a travel app for Black travelers, and how it aims to challenge misconceptions about Africa and the Caribbean.

Solving Diaspora traveling problems

When Martins took a trip to Lagos, she describes a series of moments that led her to consider creating the app. “I’d travelled to Lagos and watched people, including myself, spend the first day of their trip just trying to figure out the basics. Where’s the SIM card? Why won’t my card work? Where is everyone going tonight?”

She realised these weren’t tourist problems; they were diaspora problems. “People going home, or going to a place that felt like home, and still feeling like a stranger because the infrastructure wasn’t built for them.”
Martins then started talking to event organisers and tourism boards who were trying to reach this demographic of people with limited access to connections.

“That’s when I realised this wasn’t a travel app. It was infrastructure. The diaspora needed a platform that understood them end-to-end — how they move, how they spend, what they’re looking for, and who they’re trying to stay connected to. BRDRS is that.”

BRDRS acting as a travel super app ecosystem

Martins describes the app as a travel super app ecosystem as it solves several travel issues, not just a fraction of them. “Most travel apps solve one thing: booking a hotel, buying a SIM, sending money home. You still need four or five different apps to have a complete trip experience.”

She explains that the app puts everything in one place. Once you open the app before your trip, you’ll already be able to see what’s happening on the ground in your chosen location.

“You buy your eSIM, so you have data before you land. Your multi-currency wallet is loaded, so you can pay locally without losing money on conversion. You land, you open the app, and you have an AI concierge telling you what’s happening tonight, what venues are the move, what cultural events are worth your time.”

Making travel safe for Black female solo travellers

Black women are the fastest-growing demographic in travel, yet they are the most underserved in terms of safety, and finding platforms that truly understand their experience.

“When a Black woman travels to Africa or the Caribbean, she’s not just booking a trip. She’s navigating questions about safety, about connection, about what it feels like to move through a space where she’s both at home and unfamiliar. Generic platforms don’t have answers for that. BRDRS does.”

The app will build features specifically for solo travellers and travel groups, vetted recommendations, safety-first navigation, and community tools that let you connect with other diaspora travellers on the ground. It will also factor in students.

“On the HBCU side, for many students, a trip to Ghana or Nigeria or Jamaica is the first time they’ve ever visited a country their family is from.  BRDRS gives those students the infrastructure to arrive prepared,  eSIM active before they land, wallet loaded, cultural context at their fingertips, and a safety framework that their program coordinators can customise. We want that first trip to be transformative, not logistically stressful.”

Changing misconceptions about Africa and The Caribbean

There are, unfortunately, still misconceptions about Africa and the Caribbean regarding international travel. Martin hopes the app can do that.

“People have been conditioned to think travelling to Africa or the Caribbean requires extra preparation, extra caution, extra everything. And a lot of that is just the infrastructure gap, when the infrastructure doesn’t exist, the experience feels harder than it is.”

For Martins, borderless travel is personal. “It’s the ability to belong everywhere you have roots. I have roots in Atlanta. I have roots in Lagos. I have roots in the Caribbean.” She hopes that the app can reduce the financial, logistical and cultural barriers to travelling.

“Borderless means that friction disappears. It means every member of the diaspora can move through the world with the same ease as someone who was never told their home was hard to get to. That’s what BRDRS is for. That’s what we’re building.”

Image: Joy Martins