Chowdeck, a Lagos-based on-demand delivery platform, has closed a $9 million Series A round led by Novastar Ventures. Participation came from Y Combinator, Palm Drive, AAIC Investment, Rebel Fund, GFR Fund, Kaleo, HoaQ, and other backers. The raise will fund a quick-commerce push, including dark stores and hyperlocal fulfilment hubs, and expansion into new cities across Nigeria and Ghana.
In a short statement shared today, the company celebrated scaling from its first orders to serving more than 1.5 million customers across 11 cities on a “homegrown platform built for the realities of our streets.” Chowdeck said it will deploy the new capital to accelerate deliveries, deepen coverage, and roll out dark-store fulfilment to shorten delivery times for groceries, food, and essentials.
Founded in October 2021 and incubated through Y Combinator, Chowdeck was built to combine logistics, payments, inventory management, and real-time performance tools for restaurants, merchants, and consumers. The startup says that home-grown tech and an asset-light rider network helped it stay profitable in a notoriously tricky, low-margin market, an attractive trait for investors eyeing African logistics plays.
Novastar’s lead investment comes amid growing investor interest in Nigeria’s food-delivery and quick-commerce markets, which analysts say could expand substantially despite macroeconomic headwinds such as food inflation and currency volatility. Chowdeck’s approach, focusing on faster fulfillment through dark stores to reduce last-mile costs, puts it in direct competition with other quick-commerce and grocery delivery players in West Africa.
Chowdeck’s management thanked customers, riders, vendors, and employees for their role in the company’s growth, calling the Series A a launchpad for the “next chapter” and echoing the startup mantra: “the journey continues, it’s now day 1.” Industry watchers say the next 12–18 months will be pivotal as Chowdeck executes on quick-commerce rollouts and tests unit economics at scale.
