Vendease, a Y Combinator-backed Nigerian agri-tech platform that enables restaurants in Africa to buy supplies, access financial services and power their business operations, has raised $30 million in an equity and debt funding round to consolidate its growth and operations in Nigeria and Ghana, and to support its expansion across the continent.
A statement by the leading digital food procurement company said the series A equity round of $20 million was co-led by TLcom and Partech, in a joint investment by two of the biggest Africa-focused funds. The equity round also included VentureSouq, Hustle fund, Hack VC, GFR Fund, Kube VC, Magic Fund and Kairos Angels, who re-invested after participating in the previous round. Meanwhile, the additional $10 million debt round was raised from the local finance market.
Following their investments, Andreata Muforo, partner at TLcom, and Cyril Collon, general partner at Partech, will join Vendease’s board as new directors.
Tunde Kara, CEO and co-founder of Vendease, explained that the company’s mission is to enable the efficient flow of food across the continent, from point of production to point of consumption.
“It is more than just placing orders for supplies; we want to transform how the entire sector works and remove the bottlenecks that stunt the growth of restaurants and food businesses. With greater efficiency in the supply chain, we believe we can unlock more growth opportunities across board, which is why we are excited to have raised this round, led by two of Africa’s biggest VCs, who understand what it takes to power such an ambitious mission,” Kara said.
In his remark, Muforo noted that restaurants and food businesses play a vital role in communities across the continent, expressing confidence that Vendease is on a mission to bring affordability, convenience, and reliability to these businesses and build a platform that allows the wider food sector to optimise their operations.
“We look forward to working alongside the team as they pursue the next phase of growth and unlock significant value in Africa’s fragmented food supply chain,” he added.
Cyril Collon, general partner at Partech, said Vendease is delivering vital solutions that impact critical issues around the food system in Africa.
Speaking on Partech’s partnership with the digital platform, Collon said, “We are thrilled to be working with them to take these solutions to more restaurants and food businesses across the continent. We see huge scope for growth in Nigeria and beyond and we are very optimistic about what can be achieved.”
According to industry data, Africa’s restaurants and food businesses feed an estimated 700 million people across the continent daily. However, these businesses lose about $100 billion annually due to expensive and unreliable supply, limited access to data to inform procurement decisions, wastage and theft, as well as limited access to capital to fund procurement.
To address the challenge, Vendease’s digital procurement engine makes it easier for restaurants in eight cities across Nigeria and Ghana to buy food supplies at considerably cheaper rates than open market prices, with guaranteed 12-hour delivery.
The company is also building the operating system that automates the flow of food from farm to restaurant, optimises business operations across the value chain through accurate data deployment, reduces wastage and drives profitability.
To gain access to these benefits, restaurant owners simply need to download the app, complete the registration process in a few clicks and they will be able to access all the benefits of Vendease’s platform. They can also access working capital through Vendease’s Buy-Now-Pay-Later offering to maximise the growth opportunities available to them.
Despite rising inflation and global shortage in food supply, Vendease’s solutions have since inception delivered significant savings for its users and provided relative stability for their stock levels.
Over the last 12 months, the company has moved over 400,000 metric tonnes of food through its platform, helping its users save more than $2,000,000 in procurement costs and more than 10,000 procurement man-hours. Its data has also helped to reduce wastage from overstocking by an additional $485,000.
Users have also accessed more than $12 million worth of inventory via its embedded finance product. The new funding, according to the company, will support the delivery of these services to more restaurants and food businesses across Africa, as well as the development of new solutions and services to drive growth across the food value chain.
