Vendease raises $3.2m to expand operations in the Nigerian food industry

Nigerian agritech, Vendease, announced that it has raised $3.2 million to grow its operations across the country. The seed funding raise was led by Global Founders Capital, a US-based venture capital firm, with participation from other entities like Y Combinator, Hustle Fund, Liquid 2 Ventures, Hack VC and Soma Capital. Other individuals that participated in the seed round include local investors and early backers such as Paga CEO Tayo Oviosu, Remita CEO John Obaro and Magic Fund.

Vendease, which was one of the ten African companies that participated in Y Combinator’s winter batch, is a platform that makes procurement easier and more transparent for Hotels and Restaurants in Africa. On the Vendease online marketplace, food businesses can order anything they want at the best possible prices. They do this by connecting food businesses directly to farms and food manufacturers. They also provide a buy-now-pay-later system which helps businesses grow by improving their cashflow.

This brings total funds raised by the company to $3.3million.

Vendease was founded in 2020 by CEO Tunde Kara, COO Olumide Fayankin, CPO Gatumi Aliyu, and CTO Wale Oyepeju to solve the inefficiencies in the highly fragmented food sector in Nigeria.

In a discussion with Techcrunch, CEO Tunde Kara says the company will use the funding to expand into other cities and countries before the end of Q1 next year. In addition, the funding allows Vendease to continue to build out its technology stack, secure partnerships with some payment platforms and banks to deepen its financial products, especially buy now, pay later.

According to the managing partner at Global Founders Capital on the transaction, “As a backer of one of Africa’s very first unicorns, Jumia, we’ve seen a great deal of talent in the market – and Tunde & the Vendease team are best in class both in EMEA and globally. Their laser focus and rapid growth are unprecedented, and there’s a massive opportunity ahead.”

Vendease currently operates in three Nigerian cities — Lagos, Abuja and Ibadan, supplying some of the biggest food brands in the country such as Hard Rock, Krispy Kreme and Shiro.