$3.4 M Seed funding raised by Nigerian restaurant management startup Orda
Orda, a Nigerian company that develops cloud operating systems for restaurants, has secured US $3.4 million in a seed round to further digitalize the food industry on the continent.
Guy Futi, Fikayo Akinwale, Mark Edomwande, Kunle Ogungbamila, and Namir El-Khouri founded Orda in 2020 with the goal of assisting small-scale African restaurants in growing sustainably.
After raising a pre-seed round of US $1.1 million in January, the firm has expanded its client base to more than 600 eateries in Nigeria and Kenya. It is currently processing more than 500% more weekly orders for its clients.
Quona Capital and FinTech Collective co-led Orda’s US$3.4 million seed round, which also included institutional investors Far Out Ventures and Outside VC, angel investors Doneci Kone and Julian Shapiro, and follow-on investments from the Norrsken Foundation, LoftyInc Capital, and Enza Capital.
“From day one, Orda has been focused on building solutions for small and medium-sized restaurants. These businesses operate with slim profit margins and the power of Orda’s software and financial solutions can catapult their business. Our goal is to provide end-to-end solutions that help them optimize their operations so they become more prosperous,” Futi said.
It is “very empowering,” according to Kofoworola Agbaje, senior investment associate at Quona Capital when a restaurant owner switches from pen and paper to a completely automated digital platform.
“Suddenly they have insights available to them that can improve their productivity and margins, enabling them to grow their businesses. A solution like Orda can have an outsized impact on small and medium-sized restaurants and the livelihoods of those who operate them, and we at Quona are delighted to support Orda in this important work,” she said.
According to Samantha Wulfson of FinTech Collective, digitising the long tail of eateries across Africa offered a chance to capitalise on the continent’s largest consumer spending segment.
“Not only does Orda’s omnichannel solution produce immediate efficiency gains for restaurants, but a roadmap encompassing embedded payments and credit also creates a path to tap into the flow of funds throughout an enormous food and beverage industry,” she said.
Orda believes it has achieved product-market fit after making progress over the previous 12 months, as shown by the high adoption rate, increasing referrals, and improved ease of onboarding new restaurants.
”We have a huge backlog of restaurants to onboard and we’re confident of reaching 1,000 active restaurants within the next three months. Our vendors love our solution and we do a good job of listening to feedback and incorporating that into the new features we roll out. We do our very best to always center the restaurant’s experience at the heart of our operations,” said Afua Ahwoi, head of operations at Orda.
With the recently concluded fundraising, Orda is looking to improve its payment, credit, and lending solutions, enabling customers to extract even more value from their companies. Vertical expansion is one of the company’s goals.
