Orda has raised $1.1 million in pre-seed funding to build the infrastructure that powers orders for African restaurants.
The round was led by Lofty Inc Capital, with participation from Techstars – Boulder, Magic Fund, Hustle Fund, Norrsken Foundation, Microtraction, DFS Labs, Oxford Seed Fund, Enza Capital, Agrolay Advisors, Ire Aderinokun, Jesse Ovia, Ademola Adesina, and other angel investors.
Founded in 2020 by Guy Futi (CEO), Adinlewa “Fikayo” Akinwale (CTO), Mark Edomwande, Kunle Ogungbamila, and Namir El-Khouri, Orda is a cloud-based restaurant operating system built for African chefs and food business owners. It helps restaurant owners to process orders, accept payments, connect to logistic providers, engage with their customers. Orda’s ePos, integrations, and lending solutions enable food business owners to grow and scale their businesses. It is currently operational in Nigeria and Kenya.
Commenting, CEO of Orda, Guy Futi said “We kept trying to address the very real pain points of chefs, caterers, and small restaurants and from that Orda grew. Before Orda, a small food business owner could spend up to 4 hours a day reconciling transactions while trying to figure out losses. We looked to alleviate that burden. In the process, we noticed that food business owners were not fully integrated with local payment solutions, online sales channels, and logistic providers. This made their operations even more difficult.”
“Orda was built from a near 18 months of a collaborative customer feedback loop. We listened to everything, from how African restaurants reconcile inventory, how customers pay, to how they handle logistics and more. We can confidently say that no one has done as much work as we have to build an end-to-end solution for our food business owners. We are excited to usher in much-needed digitization to the sector”, says Fikayo Akinwale, the CTO.
Per its numbers, the startup which recently became a Techstars portfolio company says Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) has been growing at more than 15% week over week as it now processes thousands of weekly transactions.
Idris Ayodeji Bello, managing partner of LoftyInc Capital said, “We loved investing in Orda because it is building the core digital infrastructure for restaurants across Africa. The team has done the hard work of figuring out the core problems that African restaurant owners are facing and is building a solution that can revolutionise the food business across the continent. LoftyInc is excited to back a solution-focused team like Orda.”
