Orda, Nigerian restaurant management startup Orda secures $1.1m pre-seed to expand across Africa

Orda, a Nigerian restaurant management business, has raised a pre-seed fundraising round of US$1.1 million in order to accelerate its growth and extend throughout the continent.

Orda, which launched in 2020, is a cloud-based restaurant management system provider with the goal of providing a single operating system to power African eateries. The Lagos-based firm has collaborated with a number of well-known African and global restaurants, including Barcelos, Eric Kayser, Johnny Rockets, and Ofadaboy, since its inception.

The US$1.1 million pre-seed round was led by Lofty Inc Capital Management, with participation from Techstars – Boulder, Magic Fund, Hustle Fund, Norrsken Foundation, Microtraction, DFS Labs, Oxford Seed Fund, Enza Capital and Agrolay Advisors, as well as Ire Aderinokun, Jesse Ovia, Ademola Adesina and other angel investors.

Following the funding, the firm intends to accelerate its growth and expand throughout the continent.

Orda has created a full-stack solution for integrating local payments, logistics firms, inventory management, and business analytics for small to medium-sized food businesses. It claims to be the continent’s only technological solution that allows restaurants to take and process all of their in-store, online, social media, WhatsApp, Jumia Food, Glovo, and Bolt Food orders from a single, simple interface.

The cloud-based solution offered by the startup is presently available to eateries in Nigeria and Kenya. As Orda currently executes thousands of weekly transactions, Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) has been increasing at a rate of more than 15% week on week.

In terms of the technology’s inspiration, Guy Futi, the startup’s CEO, stated that the team has continued to try to solve the real pain points of chefs, caterers, and small eateries.

“Orda grew from that.” Prior to Orda, a small food business owner could spend up to four hours a day settling transactions and calculating losses. We sought for ways to lighten that burden. We discovered that food business owners were not adequately integrated with local payment solutions, internet sales platforms, and logistics providers during the process. “This made their operations that much more difficult,” he explained.

In terms of the technology’s inspiration, Guy Futi, the startup’s CEO, stated that the team has continued to try to solve the real pain points of chefs, caterers, and small eateries.

“Orda grew from that.” Prior to Orda, a small food business owner could spend up to four hours a day settling transactions and calculating losses. We sought for ways to lighten that burden. We discovered that food business owners were not adequately integrated with local payment solutions, internet sales platforms, and logistics providers during the process. “This made their operations that much more difficult,” he explained.