Vendease, an online marketplace for Africa’s food businesses, says it has raised $30 million to transform restaurant businesses across Africa. Vendease which made this known in a statement issued in Lagos said the money was raised in an equity and debt funding round. It said that the funding was aimed at consolidating its growth and operations in Nigeria and Ghana, and to support its expansion across the continent. It said that the series A equity round of $20 million was co-led by TLcom and Partech, in a rare joint investment by two of the biggest Africa-focused funds.
According to the statement, the 10 million dollar debt round was raised from the local finance market. It said that Africa’s restaurants and food businesses fed 700 million people across the continent daily. “However, these businesses lose 100 billion dollars 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. 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, ” it said. According to the statement, the company is 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.
The company also said that businesses could access working capital through Vendease’s buy-now-pay-later offering to maximise the growth opportunities available to them. It said that, in spite of the ongoing inflation and global shortage in food supply, Vendease’s solutions had delivered significant savings for its users and provided relative stability for their stock levels. It said that in 12 months, Vendease had moved more than 400,000 metric tonnes of food through its platform, helping its users save more than 2million dollars in procurement costs and more than 10,000 procurement man-hours. The Chief Executive Officer of Vendease, Mr Tunde Kara said: “Our 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,” he said. Andreata Muforo, Partner at TLcom, said: “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.” Muforo said they were looking forward to working alongside the team as they pursued the next phase of growth and unlock significant value in Africa’s fragmented food supply chain. The General Partner at Partech, Mr Cyril Collon, said : “Vendease is delivering vital solutions that impact critical issues around the food system in Africa. 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,” he said.
