Nigeria’s B2B e-commerce company, Omnibiz, said it has closed a $15 million pre-Series A round comprising $5 million equity and $10 million debt.
Omnibiz said it will use the funding to double down on winning the loyalty of retail customers and driving their retention. The company also plans to begin its regional expansion this month into cities it cited during its seed raise last year: Abidjan, Takoradi, Kumasi and Accra.
The funding was led by Timon Capital. Other VC firms such as Ventures Platform, Lofty Inc, Chapel Hill Denham, Chandaria Capital and Musha Ventures also participated. Some of these investors took part in the company’s seed round.
Last August, the startup raised $3 million to expand into new markets within the country. The platform, which offers a mobile app, a WhatsApp channel, and a phone number that retailers can use to stock their shops, has since expanded its footprints into 12 cities across Nigeria while completing its first Pan-African move into Ghana.
What they are saying
Commenting on the fundraise, Omnibiz founder, Deepanker Rustagi, said: “We have expanded in terms of the number of retailers since our seed raise. We’ve expanded in cities, geographically, and we have improved the overall system; the retention of the retailer, even with growing competition, has been phenomenal. And I think that’s what equips us for the next race.”
A partner at emerging markets VC Timon Capital. Nikos Katsaounis, said his firm invested in Omnibiz because it believes the company is solving a much-needed problem. “The FMCG supply chain is fragmented, inefficient, and opaque. Omnibiz tackles all of these problems and addresses them with an efficient software layer that provides much-needed data on this otherwise obscure market and supply chain. Deepankar Rustagi is an excellent operating CEO,” he said.
How Omnibiz operates
- Omnibiz operates an asset-light retail distribution model. When a retailer makes orders on the Omnibiz platform, the goods are requested from partner distributors (traditionally known to help with warehousing and transportation) who store goods on behalf of manufacturers.
- With Omnibiz, these distributors can focus solely on warehousing and pass on the responsibility of transporting goods to third-party logistics providers, who distribute orders to the retailers within 24 hours.
