The closing of a $3 million Seed round has been announced by OneOrder, an Egypt-based fintech-enabled restaurant management platform that provides food supply to hotels, restaurants, and cafés. Leading Mena early-stage VC, A15, also contributes to this round, which is led by Nclude. Brendon Blacker, managing partner of Delivery Hero Ventures, a fund funded by the world’s largest meal delivery company, joins the OneOrder board. Following a pre-Seed investment of $1 million, headed by A15, and $6.5 million in working capital financing from other local NBFIs, today’s news takes the company’s total investment to $10.5 million.

OneOrder plans to increase its internal operations and tech talent, scale its sales team to increase market share, and substantially invest in its proprietary technology using the most recent capital infusion. The tech-driven food and hospitality company will also invest more money in growing its offline presence and expanding its warehouse network throughout Egypt and the Mena region.

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Speaking on the round, Tamer Amer, Cofounder and CEO OneOrder stated, ‘As a restauranteur myself, I have witnessed first hand the avoidable overheads and hassles HoReCa businesses go through in serving their customers. We are delighted by the level of adoption and growth we have recorded over the past year which is testament to the fact that we are addressing a huge unmet demand in our region. Asides improving efficiency, we are reducing costs and impacting restaurants’ bottom lines — saving them time through operational efficiency and money through improved purchasing power and economies of scale. Joined by prominent global investors with deep knowledge and extensive expertise in our sector, we look forward to our next phase of rapid growth.’

Brendon Blacker, who has extensive experience working with and investing in technology-enabled companies in the global F&B industry, has also been added to OneOrder’s board as part of the funding round.

Why The Investors Invested

Since its founding, the firm has gained a lot of traction. OneOrder has a TAM of 400,000 restaurants that spend $40B yearly in total in Egypt alone. 

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Basil Moftah, Managing Partner at Nclude added, ‘We have been impressed by OneOrder’s remarkable progress, driven by the unparalleled market expertise of Tamer, Karim and the entire team. The product-market fit of the OneOder solution is very impressive, along with the positive impact it is delivering to all stakeholders in the value chain. Through the use of technology and alternative data, OneOrder’s embedded financing will help underserved clients who are unable to secure traditional financing. This aligns perfectly with our investing philosophy and we are glad to be embarking on this journey with the team.’

Brendon Blacker, Managing Partner at Delivery Hero Ventures, commented, ‘I’m privileged to be able to join OneOrder’s board and support the company’s rapid expansion plans. The explosive growth of the business in the last year is testament to the huge value that OneOrder’s industry-focused solution has been able to generate for its HoReCa customers. I am very excited for the journey ahead with Tamer, Karim and the OneOrder team.’

Karim Beshara, Managing Partner of A15, added, “A15 is excited to continue backing Tamer, Karim and the entire OneOrder team on their journey to solve HoReCa procurement pain points in Egypt and beyond. Having met Tamer during the ideation stage of the company, we are proud of what OneOrder has achieved since launch and look forward to the next chapter of the story alongside our new partners.”

A Look At What The Startup Does

OneOrder, a $40 billion HoReCa market in Cairo, Egypt, was established in 2021 by co-founders Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice. It uses technology to address supply chain issues like a lack of product availability, price volatility, inconsistent product quality, on-time and accurate delivery, and a lack of working capital financing.

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The OneOrder app, which has versions for iOS and Android, brings together a large number of reliable and vetted providers on a single platform. Due to a fragmented and opaque supply chain, restaurants currently have to communicate with up to 70 different suppliers and deal with low fulfilment quotas.

Customers also have access to a 600 SKU food and non-food supply catalogue through OneOrder, which includes a curated list of chilled and frozen items that can be delivered the following day. Due to economies of scale, OneOrder’s large purchasing power enables them to negotiate the best pricing. As a result, the cost of goods sold is decreased and hospitality businesses no longer need to incur additional storage and warehousing expenses.

OneOrder ensures a smooth order-to-fulfillment process by using its patented technology to create enormous value and boost efficiency throughout the supply chain from client to supplier. Customers can place orders and manage their inventories through a customised interface. OneOrder also manages all of its warehouse inventory through its unique warehouse management system for suppliers and to guarantee product availability and prompt and accurate fulfillment.

In an effort to solve the issue of restaurants’ lack of working capital, OneOrder has been able to create a new financing solution for its customers thanks to having complete insight of the entire process. OneOrder can develop lasting relationships with its client base and offer flexible, low-risk financial support packages based on data-backed insight if it has better visibility into its customers’ revenue and purchasing behaviours. As a result, OneOrder has joined forces with financial technology enabler PayMob to provide long tail restaurants with working capital finance and alternative payment options.

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Since OneOrder restaurants lack vertically integrated supply chains, they must invest between 6 and 7 percent of their sales to maintain the stability of their supply chains. OneOrder’s timely proprietary tech platform, which also provides users with 360-degree access over their businesses through cutting-edge analytics and statistics, is responsible for engineering the faultless ordering process. The startup will now focus on the next stage of its AI and machine learning journey to improve restaurant demand planning, ensuring they never run out of stock, accounting for high and low seasons, and eradicating waste, among other goals.

OneOrder restaurant OneOrder restaurant OneOrder restaurant

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh

OneOrder, a new logistics startup addressing supply chain inefficiencies in Egyptian restaurants, has announced its launch and successful completion of a $1 million campaign. The fundraise was led by A15, the top MENA venture capital firm, and known as one of the most notable backers of early-stage startups in the area.

“We are delighted to announce our launch and fundraise, and I thank A15 for their outstanding support. Given Egypt’s flourishing restaurant industry and the challenges it faces caused by a fragmented supply chain, OneOrder offers a much needed technology-enabled solution at the perfect time. My experience in the food and beverage industry means I know what restaurant owners need; it is a reliable, timely supply of quality goods, at a consistent price — without the stress of managing various suppliers on a daily basis. We believe restaurants should be focussed on delivering a high-quality experience and service to their customers without having to worry about sourcing and procurement. We are the platform to deliver that. I’m very excited about the future as our market opportunity is huge. Egypt and the wider region are booming economically, and the food & beverage sector is only growing larger,” Tamer Amer, founder and CEO of OneOrder, said.

Moataz Abdelrahman, who is now the Coca-Cola General Manager for Egypt, Libya, and Sudan, has joined OneOrder’s Board of Directors. He has a diverse background in marketing, business development, and operations, having worked in over 17 markets with over 200 million people.

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Karim Hassan, the current CEO of Ankh, will also join the board as a non-executive Chairman of the board. Karim has 20 years of expertise in investment and operations in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

The company will be able to extend its geographical footprint as well as strengthen its product development with the new financing.

Why The Investors Invested

Investors were encouraged by the previous experiences of team. Along with founder Tamer Amer, OneOrder’s executive team has a strong track record in the food and beverage industry. Karim Maurice serves as a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Maurice developed Cube, Egypt’s version of OpenTable, the global online restaurant reservation service, as well as Bitroot, an early-stage enterprise “CTO-as-a-Service.”

“We are excited to partner with Tamer to solve one of the main challenges the Food & Beverages industry faces in the MENA region. By leveraging Tamer’s extensive experience as a successful restauranteur and A15’s history of building scalable technology platforms, we will aim to provide restaurants in the region with reliable, convenient and timely supplies that are consistently priced,” Karim Beshara, General Partner at A15, said. 

A Look At What The Startup Does

OneOrder is Egypt’s first logistics company, addressing the huge inefficiencies in the sourcing of supplies experienced by Egypt’s restaurants. Tamer Amer, the founder of Fuego Sushi and Longhorn Texas BBQ, two of Egypt’s most successful restaurant businesses, founded it.

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OneOrder is building a platform to address a major structural issue that Egyptian restaurants face: working on a regular basis with a variety of tiny, fragmented suppliers and vendors from whom they get meat, vegetables, and equipment. This inefficient supply chain structure results in (i) inconsistent and opaque pricing, (ii) unpredictable quality that is passed on to restaurant customers, and (iii) erratic delivery schedule, with supplies frequently arriving late, limiting restaurants’ daily menu selections.

The OneOrder platform allows Egyptian restaurants to purchase all of their supplies from a single application, ensuring consistent quality, pricing, and delivery.

OneOrder has a large market opportunity. There are around 45,000 licensed restaurants in Egypt, but there are as many as a quarter of a million unregistered restaurants that are all operating and using supplies. The whole Food & Beverage (“F&B”) / Hospitality market in Egypt was estimated to be $13 billion by the US Department of Agriculture in 2019, and OneOrder expects that amount to have expanded significantly since then.

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Market forces are also enticing. According to the latest analysis from Fitch Ratings, a global ratings organization, Egypt’s GDP would increase by 5.3 percent between 2021 and 2023, owing to strong private consumption and rising tourism. Egypt is also developing new cities, such as New Alamein, and growing hotels and commerce around the country, all of which is good for the food and beverage industry.

Similar restaurant supply chain inefficiencies exist in other MENA nations, and OneOrder hopes to expand its offering geographically across the region over time.

OneOrder logistics OneOrder logistics

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer