A digital platform for food procurement, Vendease, backed by Y Combinator, has raised $30 million in an equity and debt fundraising round to assist its expansion across the continent and to consolidate its growth and operations in Nigeria and Ghana.
The start-up makes it possible for restaurants in Africa to purchase goods, obtain financing, and run their operations.
The show Two of the largest funds with an emphasis on Africa, TLcom and Partech, together led an equity transaction worth $20 million. VentureSouq, Hustle Fund, Hack VC, GFR Fund, Kube VC, Magic Fund, and Kairos Angels, who had previously invested, also took part in the equity round.
The local finance market was used to raise the $10 million debt round. Following their investments, Cyril Collon, a general partner at Partech, and Andreata Muforo, a partner at TLcom, will serve as new directors on the Vendease board.
Vendease, which operates in 8 locations in Nigeria and Ghana, negotiates bulk discounts with food suppliers, stores the food, and promises delivery of food supplies to restaurants within a day at significantly lower costs.
Vendease has helped its consumers save more than $2,000,000 in procurement expenditures and more than 10,000 procurement man-hours by moving more than 400,000 metric tonnes of food via its platform in the last 12 months.
Vendease’s CEO, Tunde Kara, said “Over the past 12 months, the company has experienced a 3x increase in platform users and a 5x increase in income. These figures, he continued, demonstrated that Vendease had contributed to enhancing the effectiveness of the food flow.”
Kara said “With this additional funding, Vendease hopes to assist restaurants in tracking the path taken by food from the moment it enters the establishment until it is ultimately delivered to the customer. It also has intentions to pursue faster delivery times, enter a few additional markets, and strengthen its footprint in the 8 locations across Ghana and Nigeria where it is now present.”
“Vendease’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software would receive some of the investment. By accurately deploying data across the value chain, the ERP software automates the movement of food from farms to restaurants, optimizes business processes, lowers wastage, and increases restaurant profitability. Even though their software has benefited their clients, Vendease still has “a lot on the table” to accomplish “the opinion of Kara.
Any restaurant that chooses to open in the next two years will have access to its ERP, which offers a plug-and-play platform where financing, inventory management, recipe management, and other requirements are handled.
This would give anyone the chance to open a restaurant, which Kara claims is a hitherto unattainable opportunity.
The business claims that customers have used its embedded finance offering to access inventory worth more than $12 million. Kara claimed that this feature’s huge success can be attributed to Vendease’s effort to comprehend its customer base.
He continued by saying that the business uses data to assist its users in overcoming their inadequate invoicing and inventory management systems, enabling them to repay loans in a flash.
When the company recognized it could have an impact on the supply chain process, Vendease chose to switch its business model from being a platform that connected food suppliers to restaurants.
“Restaurants and food businesses play a vital role in communities across the continent, and Vendease is on a mission to bring affordability, convenience, and reliability to these businesses and builds a platform that allows the wider food sector to optimize their operations,” said Andreata Muforo, partner at TLcom, in a statement about the fundraising. As they seek the next stage of growth and uncover enormous potential in Africa’s disjointed food supply chain, we look forward to collaborating with the team.
