In a food delivery sector littered with failed startups and strategic retreats, Nigeria’s Chowdeck is doubling down. The Y Combinator-backed startup has acquired Mira, a restaurant-focused point-of-sale (PoS) technology company, in a move that signals a broader ambition: to become not just a logistics player, but the tech backbone of Nigeria’s food and hospitality industry.
With this acquisition, Chowdeck is doing more than absorbing a younger peer — it’s vertically integrating to address the operational chaos that continues to cripple many small and medium-sized food businesses in one of Africa’s largest economies.
“Restaurants don’t just need fast delivery — they need clarity behind the scenes,” Chowdeck’s CEO and co-founder Femi Aluko said. “With Mira, we’re helping restaurants move from inventory chaos to growth clarity.”
Mira CEO Ted Oladele joins Chowdeck as Head of Product, along with his team, as part of the acquisition deal. Together, they will work on expanding a new product suite that blends Chowdeck’s delivery logistics with Mira’s management systems — offering restaurant partners tools that stretch from menu digitization to payment processing and inventory tracking.
Betting Against the Odds
Chowdeck’s move is a high-stakes bet in an industry facing significant headwinds. Over the past year, players like Jumia Food and Bolt Food have exited the market, citing macroeconomic pressures, inefficient unit economics, and fierce competition. Lagos’s infamously chaotic traffic, poor road infrastructure, rising fuel costs, and inconsistent map data make timely food delivery in Nigeria both operationally complex and financially draining.
Yet, amid the wreckage, Chowdeck has managed to grow.
Launched in the aftermath of Nigeria’s COVID-19 lockdown in October 2021, the startup has grown from a modest pilot into a major player with over 1.5 million users and more than 20,000 active delivery riders across 11 cities in Nigeria and Ghana. The average delivery time: under 30 minutes. In October 2024, Chowdeck claimed ₦1 billion ($1.2 million) in monthly order value, all driven by what it called “organic” growth.
Chowdeck’s latest $2.5 million seed round in April 2024 — backed by a long list of local and global investors including Y Combinator, Goodwater Capital, and prominent African founders like Paystack’s Shola Akinlade — has provided the financial fuel for this next phase of expansion.
Why Mira?
The Mira acquisition fills a strategic hole in Chowdeck’s broader mission. While Chowdeck has established itself in the last-mile logistics space, Mira brings a layer of infrastructure many restaurants desperately need: operational visibility and management control.
Founded in January 2024, Mira started out offering QR code-based ordering and payments. But customer feedback pushed the startup to pivot toward a full-stack hardware solution — what became the Mira Register. Priced at ₦360,000 ($226), the device combines dual displays, a receipt printer, barcode scanner, and software that tracks inventory and order flows. More importantly, it works even under the low-bandwidth conditions common in Nigeria’s urban centers.
With subscription plans ranging from $5 to $500 per month and a 1% transaction fee, Mira now serves around 200 restaurant businesses including notable brands like Ashluxe, Olaiya Foods, and Grey Matter. The startup has processed over $500,000 in transactions and currently pursues a seed round after an earlier $200,000 friends-and-family raise.
Its dashboard — a core selling point — has drawn praise from restaurateurs who cite its ability to reduce waste and improve profit margins through better demand forecasting.
An Industry in Flux
The timing of Chowdeck’s vertical expansion is notable. Global players like Glovo have continued to build their footprint in Nigeria, revealing earlier this year that they had generated over ₦71 billion for local partners and helped digitize over 6,000 SMEs since 2021. The company, part of Delivery Hero, sees Nigeria as a key growth market amid a broader pan-African push.
Still, Glovo is the exception. Bolt Food shuttered operations in Nigeria in December 2023, citing strategic realignment. Jumia Food, once a category pioneer, exited seven African markets entirely, including Nigeria, by the end of 2023 due to “unsustainable costs.”
This leaves room for regional champions like Chowdeck to experiment — and potentially win. But challenges remain.
Fuel price hikes and surging inflation have led to increased rider fees, while infrastructural constraints — from poor address systems to delivery delays caused by Lagos traffic — still undercut customer experience. Furthermore, consumer price sensitivity means few restaurants can absorb expensive tech upgrades without clear ROI.
That’s where the Mira deal could prove decisive. If Chowdeck can show that bundling delivery and business tools improves both performance and profitability for restaurants, it may find new staying power in a fragile market.
What’s Next for Chowdeck?
For now, Chowdeck is focused on expansion. Having recently moved into Ghana, the company is eyeing more Nigerian cities and a broader customer base. The integration of Mira’s hardware and software suite will likely be rolled out incrementally, starting with Chowdeck’s most active restaurant partners.
Whether this hybrid approach — logistics meets infrastructure — can help Chowdeck defy the trend of short-lived delivery startups remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: in a landscape defined by exits and burnouts, Chowdeck is betting that deeper integration, not just faster service, is the path to sustainability.
In a sector where many have tried and failed, Chowdeck isn’t just delivering food anymore. It’s trying to deliver the future of restaurant technology in Africa.