Kenya customer engagement platform, Ongair has unlocked funding to scale into Asia with their social media aggregation platform for businesses.

The funding round was led by a group of angel investors including Zeytin Limited, Venture Kinetics and Nest HK.

Nest HK has its headquarters in Hong Kong and opened up in Kenya to engage locl startups.

Ongair was launched a year ago by CEO Trevor Kimenye and COO Charles Gichuki to help businesses communicate with their target markets through social media messaging platforms such as Whatsapp and WeChat.

"We've seen great growth in instant messaging globally and a rising demand for a platform that allows businesses to have a more personalised, and efficient channel to keep in touch with their customers," said Kimenye.

"With presences in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US, Nest is an ideal partner as we continue to scale our business globally," he added. "We're excited to have a partner on board that provides us not only capital, but also vast strategic experience and network across these markets. Our goal is to help businesses serve customers and we'll use the additional resources to support growth, expand strategically into Asian markets and deliver great product to delight our customers around the world".

The partners did not disclose the amount of funding raised.

"We are very excited about the growth Ongair is experiencing and believe that with this additional capital, network and strategic input, the company can grow even more rapidly and scale into Asia with Nest's support to set up in Hong Kong and enter China" said Aaron Fu, Managing Partner, Nest, Africa.

The company has said that they currently serve over 700 businesses across the globe with brands like Heineken and Coca Cola using their platform to run social promotions in various countries.

"A key reason we are in Nairobi is to be able to take innovation born in Africa, just like Ongair, to the rest of the world, there are lots of innovative startups in Africa with products that have the potential to reach very similar target demographics outside of the continent. We hope to inspire more young African entrepreneurs to design global products and export their innovation to the rest of the world," Fu commented.