Orda raises $3.4 million to unlock more value for small restaurants in Africa

Orda, an African restaurant cloud operating system provider, has today announced that it has raised a $3.4 million seed round to help small restaurants get more value by further digitising food businesses across the continent.

This announcement is coming less than a year after the startup raised $1.1 million in funding, bringing its total funds raised to $4.5 million.

This new seed round was co-led by Quona Capital and FinTech Collective and saw participation from institutional investors, including Far Out Ventures and Outside VC, angels
Doneci Kone and Julian Shapiro, and follow-on investment from Norrsken Foundation, Lofty Inc
Capital and Enza Capital.

Orda intends to improve its services to help more African restaurants maximize their business operations and expand distribution with this new funding. The loan, credit, and payment options will also be improved while assisting clients in maximising the value of their businesses.

Speaking about their motivations for participating in this seed round of funding and the kind of impact Orda aims to have on the African food business, Kofoworola Agbaje, Senior Investment Associate at Quona Capital said,

“When a restaurant owner moves from pen and paper to a fully automated digital platform, it’s incredibly empowering. Suddenly they have insights 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.

Kofoworola Agbaje

With the help of this solution, the opportunity to capitalize on Africa’s largest consumer spending segment while creating an operating system valued for and by small and medium-sized African restaurants is made possible.

Read Also: Nigeria’s Orda raises $1.1m pre-seed fund to expand its restaurant management services

About Orda

Founded by Guy Futi, Fikayo Akinwale, Mark Edomwande, Kunle Ogungbamila, and Namir El-
Khouri in 2020, Orda’s vision is to assist small-scale African restaurants in optimizing their operations and achieving sustainable growth.

Orda addresses difficulties small food businesses face, such as daily manual reconciliation, inventory management, and other administrative activities. The startup helps restaurants optimize operations, scale distribution, and understand customer behaviour with advanced business analytics.

These goals are achieved through a variety of products, which include kitchen display systems, order and inventory management, integrations with top food aggregators, accounting software, microsites, mobile apps, etc.,

These services have been incredibly beneficial for many food industry owners in helping them manage and optimize their operations. Modupe Alimi, manager of Korede Spaghetti, commented on Orda’s intention to increase the restaurant’s operational effectiveness and said,

Before, we couldn’t keep count of inventory and orders because we were not that organized. With Orda, we can now keep everything in an account. We know everything that goes out through [pick-up] orders and delivery. We don’t need to hire more employees than necessary and that has made us more profitable.

This is an instant efficiency boost for restaurants with the Orda, and its services also give food business owners a roadmap that includes embedded payments and credit that creates a method to access the flow of cash even throughout a large food industry.

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Orda growth and plans for the African food business industry

With over 600 restaurants as customers in Nigeria and Kenya, the startup claims to be processing over 500% more weekly orders for its clients and aims to reach 1,000 restaurants in the next three months.

The company claims that its focus on assisting small and medium-sized restaurants in managing their operations more effectively is the cause of this success.

This may be the case given that while making up the majority of the $50 billion food service business in Africa, small independent restaurants have had limited access to technology solutions suited to their needs.

Orda is particularly convenient as the application can function offline, and its ePos may operate in remote areas with little to no internet service. Data is synchronised with the cloud application when the restaurant is back online. This is what sets it apart from other cloud-based solutions, especially with the level of maximum functionality present in the operating system.

Commenting on Orda’s vision goal, Guy Futi, CEO and co-founder, said,

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.

Orda thinks it has achieved product-market fit due to this enormous expansion, supported by the rising referrals, high adoption rates, and simplicity of onboarding new restaurants. It is looking to achieve more in the coming years.