Vendease Africa
“Can a vertical food-procurement platform for African restaurants become the financial OS for HoReCa via BNPL, wallets, and embedded payments?”
Founded2019
HQLagos, Nigeria
FoundersTunde Kara
Total raised$33.3M
Latest roundSeries A, 2022
IndustryVertical SaaS / Restaurants
The story
Vendease launched in 2020 as a fragmented B2B food marketplace for African restaurants, then pivoted to bulk procurement with owned inventory. As the platform scaled, embedded payments became inevitable — CEO Tunde Kara has said 'when you build your vertical deeply enough, the horizontal platform of payments almost becomes inevitable.' Vendease built its own payment solution, digital wallet, and BNPL credit product to solve supplier-payment delays. By 2026 the consumer-facing brand appears to have narrowed to 'Discover Fresh by Vendease' targeting Lagos operators, with headcount down 32% YoY.
Product timeline
2020
Launched as B2B food procurement marketplace connecting suppliers and farms to Nigerian restaurants.· pivot
2020
Pivoted to buying discounted products in bulk, storing them, and handling deliveries.· pivot
2021
Raised $3.2M seed round.· banking
2022
Raised $30M Series A led by Partech Africa and TLcom.· banking
2022
Launched embedded payments, digital wallet, and BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) financial services for restaurants.· lending
2026
Rebranded portion of business as 'Discover Fresh by Vendease' (Vend Easy Limited), focused on Lagos B2B food procurement with BNPL.· pivot
Same company
Vendease Africa was analysed under more than one name on the same domain, so its stack is split across these dossiers. Each was analysed independently and may name providers the others do not.
The stack
3 layers disclosed in Vendease Africa’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Vendease Payments (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: significant
4 more providers across 2 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.