Egyptian startup OneOrder sets course for growth with new $3 million funding • businessroundups.org

An order, Egypt’s restaurant supply chain solutions provider, has raised $3 million in seed funding led by Nclude with participation from A15 and Delivery Hero Ventures. The latest funding brings the total funding raised by the startup to $10.5
million, including $6.5 million of working capital funding from financial institutions.

Launched in March this year, OneOrder enables restaurants to order food through its online platform, solving the fragmented supply chain challenges that lead to erratic pricing, waste, quality issues and storage costs.

By using the platform, restaurants no longer have to deal with dozens of suppliers and can order only what they need for next day delivery, reducing waste and eliminating warehouses. The platform also ensures operational efficiencies and helps restaurants save money by leveraging OneOrder’s economies of scale.

The startup plans to use the funding to scale its business in Egypt, including increasing its warehouse footprint, and explore growth opportunities within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and Africa.

“We are exploring Saudi Arabia and expanding south into our continent. I think Africa has a lot of markets that feel the same pain points as Egypt,” says OneOrder co-founder and CEO, Tamer Amer, co-founder of OneOrder with Karim Maurice (CTO), also founder of Cube, an online restaurant reservation service.

“The solution we provide has shown that this industry is ready for technical solutions…[and] we are working on a more substantial operating system for the restaurants, not just the supply chain and inventory management system, but the entire cycle that would make their operations automatic by leveraging AI and machine learning capabilities to drive the supply chain,” said Amer, a restaurateur for over two decades, initially in the US before settling in Egypt from 2008.

Amer told businessroundups.org that the procurement challenges he faced running two restaurants in Egypt — Fuego, a sushi bar, and Longhord Texas Barbeque — inspired the launch of OneOrder, to serve the country’s total addressable market of 400,000 restaurants.

“I had always taken the US supply chain for granted; we would order and get the supplies all the time. We didn’t have to worry about shortages or price changes. I realized that Egypt is so underserved and the industry is really doing a lot of things that we shouldn’t be doing,” he said.

“…restaurants should not have a full-time job to monitor the supply chain and source products, as this takes the focus away from the core business of serving customers. So that’s where the idea really started,” he said.

OneOrder, through its partners and backed by its extensive data, plans to begin expanding working capital financing options for restaurants to help them scale their operations.

Basil Moftah, the managing partner at Nclude, said: “The product-market fit of the OneOrder solution is very impressive, along with the positive impact it has on all stakeholders in the value chain. Through the use of technology and alternative data, OneOrder’s embedded financing will help underserved customers who cannot access traditional financing. This aligns perfectly with our investment philosophy and we are pleased to embark on this journey with the team.”