SA deliveries startup Orderin secures $4.7m pre-Series B funding round

Orderin, a South African business-to-business (B2B) delivery-as-a-service (DaaS) startup, has raised ZAR71 million (US$4.7 million) in pre-Series B funding to help it scale its infrastructure and improve its last-mile delivery service.

Orderin, which was founded in 2013, is one of South Africa’s major on-demand delivery services, providing delivery services for companies such as McDonald’s and Pick n Pay.

Following prior rounds of funding between 2018 and 2021, the total investment now stands at R303 million (US$19.85 million).

Orderin plans to use the funds to scale its proprietary DaaS technology with its current client base in the short term, launch DaaS for SMMEs in the medium term, and build a flywheel for its long-term goal of providing a platform for all types of businesses to access a variety of affordable e-logistics services.

“Over the last several years, e-commerce has grown steadily, but the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited this expansion.” Orderin CEO Thembani Biyam stated, “Customer expectations have placed a demand on businesses for easy, rapid, and sometimes even free delivery choices.”

“Driving infrastructure expansion and development will not only improve last-mile distribution and make it more accessible to businesses. This is especially true for SMMEs, which may struggle to compete with larger firms on this front, but can also bring in a new era of e-commerce.”

Emerging technologies, according to Biyam, are playing a big part in helping businesses to satisfy this high customer demand for last-mile delivery, with the startup’s head of finance Vulnavia Gura referring to tech such as AI and data science as areas in which Orderin would expand its capabilities.

“These technologies are critical in creating dynamic predictive models that allow our customers to avoid these difficulties at the speed required for effective delivery.” It is, however, expensive. “The financing we raise enables us to scale our personnel, technology, and product as our customers and sales grow,” Gura explained.

“We are rapidly maturing our operational and governance frameworks – our investors expect it, and our stakeholders demand it.” We feel that as a young company entrusted with the funds of investors, we should establish a reputation for caution. This will instill trust in future funders.”