Brief: Nigeria’s Vendease secures $30m Series A as it automates food supply in Africa

• Vendease, a Nigerian fresh and processed food procurement platform on a mission to automate food supply in Africa, just secured $30 million in a Series A round that includes $20 million in equity and $10 million in debt.
• The equity round was co-led by renowned tech investors Partech and TLcom Capital. Also participating were VentureSouq, GFR Fund, Kube VC, Kairos Angels, early-stage VC fund Magic Fund and previous investors Hustle Fund and Hack VC.
• The $10 million debt financing was acquired from the local finance market.
• This new round of financing comes after the startup closed a $3.2 million seed round in 2021 to expand into other African markets.
• With this new round of financing, Vendease will double down its expansion plans and create additional products for its users.

Why it matters

Vendease is on a mission to be ‘Africa’s Amazon for food vendors‘  by automating food supply. The realization that Africa’s food markets have their own intrinsic challenges led the startup to create an elaborate food procurement platform that it claims saves restaurants man-hours and offers them stable market prices.

Vendease first launched as an e-marketplace directly linking restaurants and food businesses to farms and food manufacturers.  The team went on to add various channels to provide a comprehensive sourcing platform for these food businesses.

These include a user inventory management and invoicing system, logistics services both in tandem with third-party providers and with Vendease drivers for deliveries within 24 hours, as well as a credit offering to its users under a buy-now-pay-later system.

The 2020-founded startup, which is a Y Combinator alumnus, now claims to serve over 3,000 food businesses, farms, and merchants in eight cities in Nigeria and Ghana.