The digital platform Vendease, which is based in Lagos, Nigeria, and is backed by Y Combinator, has raised $30 million in equity and debt financing.
Vendease is a digital platform that helps African restaurants buy goods, access financial services, and run their businesses. It is backed by Y Combinator and has raised $30 million in equity and loan capital.
The fund will help the company improve its growth and operations in Nigeria and Ghana, and it will also help the company grow outside of Africa.
In a rare instance of a collaborative investment by two of the largest firms focused on Africa, TLcom and Partech co-led an equity round with a total funding goal of $20 million. After having participated in the previous phase, VentureSouq, Hustle Fund, Hack VC, GFR Fund, Kube VC, Magic Fund, and Kairos Angels all re-invested in the company during the equity round. The local financial market was used to raise the ten million dollars necessary for the debt round.
700 million people in Africa get their food every day from restaurants and other businesses that deal with food.
But these companies lose a total of $100 billion every year because their supplies are expensive and unreliable, they don’t have easy access to information that could be used to influence buying decisions, they waste and steal, and they don’t have easy access to cash that could be used to pay for purchases.
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With Vendease’s digital procurement engine, restaurants in eight cities in Nigeria and Ghana can buy food supplies at prices much lower than those on the open market and be sure to get them within 12 hours.
Vendease $30 million financing
The company plans to use the money to build an operating system that automates the flow of food from the farm to the restaurant, improve business operations across the value chain by using accurate data, cut waste and increase profits, and bring together its growth and operations in Nigeria and Ghana.
Restaurant operators can access Vendease’s platform by downloading and registering the app. Vendease’s Buy-Now-Pay-Later option gives them working money to maximize their growth potential.
Vendease’s solutions have saved users money despite inflation and food scarcity and stabilized their stock. In the last year, Vendease has moved more than 400,000 metric tonnes of food through its network, saving its users $2,000,000 in procurement expenditures and 10,000 procurement man-hours.
Its data has reduced overstocking waste by $485,000. In the last year, the company’s platform users tripled, and its revenue quadrupled. Through its embedded finance solution, users have access to $12 million in inventory.
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More about Vendease
Vendease, led by CEO Tunde Kara, offers restaurants in eight cities in Nigeria and Ghana a digital procurement engine with guaranteed 12-hour delivery. The company is designing an operating system to automate the movement of food from farm to restaurant, optimize business operations across the value chain, decrease waste, and drive profitability. They can obtain working finance through Buy-Now-Pay-Later to maximize growth potential.
In the past year, Vendease’s platform has helped move more than 400,000 metric tons of food. This has saved its users more than $2,000,000 in costs related to procurement and more than 10,000 man-hours of time spent on procurement.
