Fez Delivery team

Nigerian last-mile logistics start-up Fez Delivery has secured $1 million seed round funding from Ventures Platform, which led the funding round, with participation from Voltron Capital, Acasia Ventures, and other angel investors.

For Fez Delivery, founded in 2020 by Seun Alley, the seed funding comes as the logistics industry is ballooning in Nigeria, driven by the growth of online shopping in the populous West African nation.

In this highly competitive environment, Fez Delivery says it has distinguished itself in the market by offering tailored and hybrid solutions that combine physical touchpoints with technology to serve its customers.

“Our learnings over the last seven years have revealed that different business priorities exist regarding last-mile delivery,” says Alley.

“For FinTech, reach is critical. For Pharma, the estimated delivery time is a big deal, and the pricing must be competitive for SMEs. Therefore, we have built an array of tech-enabled solutions; mobile and web apps (targeted at individuals), dashboards and APIs (for businesses) alongside a wide physical reach that spans all the 36 states in Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory.”

The three-year-old start-up offers per delivery pricing for individuals, and monthly subscriptions for businesses. In 2022, the logistics company completed 200 000 trips and grew revenue by 20% month-on-month.

Its clientele includes the likes of Flutterwave, Kuda Bank, Moniepoint, OPay, Famasi Africa, and Red Bull.

Commenting on the fresh capital to be injected in the business, Alley says: “With this funding, we are repositioning as a full-fledged tech company focused on last-mile deliveries.”

Fez Delivery co-founder and CTO, Oluwafemi Jose adds: “Our goal has always been to create something truly transformative. We're excited to use this funding to accelerate our innovation; expand our team, deepen our development efforts and bring more value to our customers and partners.”

For the funders, Dotun Olowoporoku, general partner, Ventures Platform Fund, says: “We are excited to partner with Fez Delivery in its mission to bring efficiency to the logistics industry.

“This industry is characterised by high fragmentation, demand-supply mismatch, and lack of transparency, due to heavy manual processes. Seun is an excellent operator with a solid vision for the future of last-mile delivery. By developing technology to enable other market players to thrive, Fez Delivery is well-aligned with our investment thesis to support market-creating innovation in underserved industries."

On expansion plans, the company says it is currently focused on the $10 billion transport and logistics market in Nigeria, where there is still growth potential. “We plan to keep growing in Nigeria and expand to other markets starting in the last quarter of this year. Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa are on our list, but we haven't decided on the order yet,” Alley says.