Fez Delivery raises $1 million from Angel Investors for expansion
A logistics and delivery business called Fez Delivery announced its $1 million seed investment. Acasia Ventures (formerly Cairo Angels), Voltron Capital, and other angel investors joined Ventures Platform in leading the investment round. This financial news comes after Techstars Toronto, a prestigious international innovation accelerator, selected Fez Delivery as one of just two logistics businesses in Nigeria to receive investment.
Seun Alley launched Fez Delivery in 2020 as a pivot from her prior business, which provided janitorial services to businesses but struggled with employee absenteeism due to janitors conducting errands. In 2016, we opened a janitorial services business. The following year, we saw a pattern of janitors missing work because they were running errands for staff members, according to Seun Alley. We introduced delivery services to the businesses we were collaborating with as a stop-gap so that our janitors could concentrate on their work. It was a resounding success. We learned from this experience that last-mile logistics is a serious issue for SMEs and individuals. We made the decision to address this issue by developing a platform that enables people and organizations to conveniently track their goods online in real-time without utilizing several logistical partners.
One of the fastest-growing industries in Nigeria is logistics, which has benefited from the explosive growth of online shopping, which is predicted to earn $5 billion in sales in 2019 and have a CAGR of 20.5% over the following five years. Many logistical enterprises have risen across the nation as a result of the scale of this opportunity. But many find it difficult to stand out from the competition and maintain a profitable business.
By providing specialized and hybrid solutions that mix technology and physical touchpoints to service its clients, Fez Delivery stands apart in the market. According to Seun Alley, “Our lessons learned over the last seven years have highlighted that multiple corporate agendas exist regarding last-mile delivery.” Reach is essential in FinTech.
The projected delivery time is important for the pharmaceutical industry, and SMEs want competitive pricing. As a result, we have created a variety of tech-enabled solutions, including dashboards, APIs, and mobile and web apps (aimed at individuals) as well as a broad geographic reach that covers all 36 states in Nigeria, including the FCT.
The three-year-old startup charges customers each delivery and businesses a monthly membership in order to recoup costs. The logistics start-up made 200,000 trips in 2022 and saw a 20% month-over-month increase in income. Flutterwave, Kuda Bank, Moniepoint, OPay, Famasi Africa, and Red Bull are just a few of its clients.
Toheeb Azeez, marketing manager at Redbull Nigeria, adds that since Fez Delivery’s inception, their delivery service has been dependable and reasonably priced for our business. We can easily deliver our items to our consumers promptly and effectively because to their extensive reach across all 774 local governments in Nigeria. Also, their swift and friendly customer service has amazed us.
On how they will use the funds, Seun Alley said that the business will keep pushing for the use of technology to address pressing issues. We are repositioning as a full-fledged digital company with a last-mile delivery focus thanks to this funding. In the meantime, interested parties can sign up to be added to the queue while the platform is still being developed.
Oluwafemi Jose, the CTO and co-founder, explains further: “Our aim has always been to build something that is truly disruptive. We can’t wait to use this financing to deepen our development efforts, expand our workforce, and accelerate innovation in order to better serve our partners and customers.
Dotun Olowoporoku, general partner at Ventures Platform Fund, says, “We are thrilled to join with Fez Delivery in their mission to improve the efficiency of the logistics sector. Due to the extensive use of manual procedures, this business is characterized by high levels of fragmentation, supply-demand mismatch, and lack of transparency.
Seun, a veteran founder with a clear vision for the future of last-mile deliveries, is an exceptional operator. Fez Delivery is in line with our investment philosophy to assist market-making innovation in underrepresented industries by enabling technology to enable other market players to prosper.
Before looking at other African markets, Fez Delivery will continue to focus on deepening its efforts in Nigeria. “Our current attention is on Nigeria’s $10 billion transport and logistics business, where there is still space for expansion. Starting in the final quarter of this year, we intend to continue growing in Nigeria and enter other markets. Although we haven’t decided on the ranking yet, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa are on our list, according to Seun Alley.
