The archive · Consumer Apps · Operational decision · 2021–2025
Chowdeck bets local food delivery can be profitable in Lagos: $9M Series A, 1.5M customers
Lagos delivery startup Chowdeck stayed profitable while rivals retreated; $9M Series A in 2025 funds Ghana and quick commerce
Chowdeck
What the business is
Chowdeck is an on-demand food delivery app in Nigeria and Ghana, delivering restaurant meals, groceries, and essentials in about 30 minutes.
Starting capital：$2.5 million seed (2024), then $9 million Series A (2025)
How it started
Femi Aluko, a former Paystack backend engineer, caught COVID on New Year's Eve 2020 and could not find food delivery during the holiday; he launched Chowdeck in October 2021 with two Paystack co-founder friends.
What happened
By mid-2022 it hit 650 daily orders and 60,000 total deliveries; in 2024 meal value grew more than sixfold, and in 2025 it passed that total before July. It entered Ghana in May 2025 and acquired POS provider Mira in June.
How it ended up
Still running and scaling: profitable before and after its $9 million Series A, operating in 11 cities across Nigeria and Ghana with 1.5 million customers and 20,000 riders, planning 40 dark stores by end-2025 and 500 by end-2026.
Background
Chowdeck was founded in Lagos in October 2021 by Femi Aluko, Olumide Ojo, and Lanre Yusuf. Aluko had worked as a backend principal engineer at Paystack, and the origin story is personal: stuck with COVID over New Year 2021, he found no working food delivery in Lagos. The founders started in two neighbourhoods, Ikeja and Yaba, and by July 2022 were processing 650 daily orders with an average delivery time under 30 minutes.
The company deliberately avoided the burn-heavy playbook of global delivery apps. Aluko says Chowdeck was profitable before its Series A and only enters cities or verticals it plans to break even in within a couple of weeks. In 2024 the value of meals delivered grew more than sixfold; in 2025 Chowdeck passed the full-year 2024 total before July. It entered Ghana in May 2025 and hit 1,000 daily orders there within three months, without paid advertising.
In August 2025 it raised a $9 million Series A led by Novastar Ventures, with Y Combinator and others participating, to roll out quick commerce via dark stores and to expand across Nigeria and Ghana. At the time it operated in 11 cities with 1.5 million customers and more than 20,000 riders, and had acquired Mira, a POS provider, in June to add restaurant software to its logistics business.
What has to be true
- Local meals are operationally harder to deliver but harder for global platforms to copy well.
- Profitability per city disciplined where the company spent, unlike rivals that scaled on subsidies.
- Aluko, Ojo, and Yusuf brought payments-era execution experience from Paystack.
- YC and Novastar capital came after the model was already profitable, not before.
What can be applied
In a market where global delivery giants lost money and left, Chowdeck won by treating profitability per city as a gate: expand only where break-even is plausible within weeks.
Aftermath
As of August 2025, Chowdeck is profitable, operating across 11 cities in Nigeria and Ghana with 1.5 million customers and over 20,000 riders, and averaging 30-minute deliveries. The $9 million Series A funds quick commerce: 40 dark stores by end-2025 and 500 by end-2026, plus further city expansion, with a stated ambition to become Africa's number one super app.
Sources
- Profitable Nigerian food delivery Chowdeck lands $9M from Novastar, Y Combinator
- Launch YC: Chowdeck - The easiest and fastest way to deliver food in Africa
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