Orda, A Nigerian Food Tech Startup Solving Challenges For Businesses Using Cloud-based Technology, Raises Seed Investment Of $3.4 Million

Orda is a Nigerian food tech startup that uses a cloud-based restaurant operating system to mitigate the challenges faced by restaurant businesses. The startup has secured a seed investment of $3.4 million in a round co-led by Quona Capital and New York-based FinTech Collective. Other participants include Lofty Inc. Capital, Enza Capital, Norrsken Foundation, Far Out Ventures, and Outside VC, a mix of both old and new investors. 

Earlier in January, Orda secured a pre-seed investment of 41.1 million and the latest addition brings the total funding raised this year to $4.5 million. Founded by Guy Futi, Orda clients are made up of mostly small and medium-sized restaurants. It focuses on these restaurants because they have limited access to technology, and rely heavily on offline and traditional methods for reconciliation and inventory management. Thanks to Orda’s technology, these businesses can move these parts of their business online and handle them more efficiently. They also gain access to other features such as kitchen display systems, accounting software, and integrations with food aggregators such as Glovo, Bolt Food, and Chowdeck. “We take an interesting approach to software and helping restaurant owners set up . Our software digitizes the process of those who write things in hand and helps them figure out their inventory management and recipe yields,” CEO Guy Futi said.

He says the startup has seen massive adoption among small restaurants in the two markets, Nigeria and Kenya, where it is present. It has about 600 vendors currently and onboarded them in less than a year. The CEO claims that there are more vendors already waiting in line to be onboarded. He also added that Orda now processes 50,000 orders weekly for its vendors, 5x from what the startup had in January. Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) is also increasing 30 percent month-on-month, he said. He added that “We’re seeing fast-paced growth in Nigeria and Kenya with a retention rate of above 95%.”

Restaurants can choose among three payment plans which provide access to different parts of their software. The subscriptions are priced at N1,000, N5,000, and N20,000. CEO Guy Futi added that revenue had increased, growing 30 percent month-on-month, thanks to the different pricing.

Orda hasn’t had a smooth ride. It’s had to face challenges on the way. It had to enable its cloud-based solution to work in offline mode in situations where there is poor internet access, etc. The startup plans to include more functionalities imminently with a focus on financial products. It wants to enable lending and payments for its customers. It already processes payments for about 10 percent of its customers and intends to roll it out to everyone by Q2 2023. 

“When a restaurant owner moves from pen and paper to a fully automated digital platform, it’s incredibly empowering. 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,” Kofoworola Agbaje, senior investment associate at Quona Capital, commented on the investment.