The raise included a $5 million equity and $10 million debt investment deal from Ventures Platform, Lofty Inc, Chapel Hill Denham, Chandaria Capital, and Musha Ventures.

On a mission to maximise retailers’ rate of interest, Omnibiz affirms to be working with over 90,000 retailers, has 1,500+ field agents across Nigeria, in over 135 local government areas covering Nigeria and Ghana.

The platform’s MyStore app, a bookkeeping tool for management of customers and inventory, enables retailers to purchase and restock goods seamlessly from over 200 product brands.

MyStore app also allows retailers to access credit, buy-now-pay-later options, and other financial services, bringing about a quicker and easier process when opening stores.

Omnibiz seeks to kick start its regional expansion this month and targets expanding to more Nigerian cities including Ilorin, Asaba, and Akure where it sees huge potential. Its goal is to become the go-to B2B operating system for informal retailers in new and current cities where it operates, enabling last-mile delivery, procurement, working capital, inventory management, and operational tools for tracking sales, cost, prices, and profit.

The startup operates an asset-light retail distribution model, through which retailers make orders on the Omnibiz platform and goods are requested from partner distributors who store goods on behalf of manufacturers. 

With Omnibiz, these distributors can focus solely on warehousing and pass on the responsibility of transporting goods to third-party logistics providers, who distribute orders to the retailers within 24 hours.

Added to its expansion, the fund raised will bolster the startup’s strive to win over loyal retail customers and drive their retention. 

The round was led by Lofty Inc Capital, and had 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 by Guy Futi (CEO), Adinlewa “Fikayo” Akinwale (CTO), Mark Edomwande, Kunle Ogungbamila, and Namir El-Khouri, Orda.Africa is a cloud-based restaurant operating system built for African chefs and food business owners.

Orda’s ePos, integrations, and lending solutions enable Africa’s millions of food business owners to grow and scale their businesses. With Orda, restaurants can manage end-to-end operations from one place.

Orda has developed a full-stack approach to integrating local payments, logistic companies while building inventory management, and business analytics for small to medium-sized food businesses. It says it is the only technology solution on the continent that allows restaurants to accept and process all their in-store, website, social media, Whatsapp, Jumia Food, Glovo, Bolt Food orders from one easy-to-use interface.

Speaking on the inspiration behind the technology, Guy Futi, CEO of Orda 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.”

Although a relatively new technology subsector, cloud-based points of sales have been rising in popularity in recent years.

A 2021 report put the global market size at $72.8 billion is expected to reach USD 116.27 billion by 2026. In the US, market leaders, Toast —which Orda is modeled after, announced revenues of $486.4 million in Q3 2021.

In Africa, Orda is believed to be among the first bottom-up software providers for restaurants. Built by an African team, the startup’s cloud-based solution factors peculiarities unique to the market. For instance, their ePos has the ability to operate in remote areas with little to no internet coverage.

“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.

The startup’s cloud-based solution is currently available for restaurants in Nigeria and Kenya. Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) has been growing at more than 15% week over week as Orda now processes thousands of weekly transactions.

Speaking on the raise, 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.”

Following the raise, the startup is looking to increase its rate of growth and expansion across the continent.