In the country’s food delivery market where hunger for innovation meets hunger for food, three-year-old FoodCourt is serving up a recipe for success.
It was a sweltering afternoon in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, and Henry Nneji stood outside a restaurant kitchen, sweat dripping down his brow. His startup had just lost its second location in a matter of months after moving from a shared kitchen experiment. Nneji’s dream of transforming Nigeria’s food delivery industry teetered on the edge. With the weight of his staff’s livelihoods on his shoulders, he had two choices — give up or find a way to thrive.
“We pretty much didn’t have any money to move into a new location, but somehow we were able to secure a third space,” 29-year-old Nneji tells FORBES AFRICA.
Nneji now sits at the helm of FoodCourt, formerly known as CoKitchen, a multi-brand virtual restaurant company joining just 4% of startups, globally, who make over $1 million annually.
His entrepreneurial spirit, however, was nurtured long before the early days of FoodCourt.
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Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, he had a front-row seat to the hustle and innovation required to navigate Nigeria’s volatile business landscape.
His mother Ngozi, a known quick service restaurant (QSR) franchise owner, once had to watch her thriving business close its doors due to the construction of a road that cut off customer access.
“There was no online presence at the time for businesses like hers,” Nneji recalls.
After receiving a degree at the University of Birmingham, Nneji returned to Nigeria brimming with ideas.
His first foray into tech was as a co-founder of Fashion Map, an online platform connecting fashion designers and consumers, in 2019. Though it grew to over 3,000 users, the market wasn’t ready for the solution, and he had to shut it down.
By 2020, the world was grappling with a pandemic, and he stumbled upon an article about Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, and a $400 million investment in CloudKitchens. The idea sparked a lightbulb moment.
Drawing from his mother’s experience, he understood the pain of the collapse of a brick-and-mortar operation. With food delivery apps gaining traction in Nigeria, Nneji saw an opportunity. But unlike traditional aggregators that only listed restaurants, he envisioned something different — a full-stack operation where FoodCourt controlled everything: the technology, the kitchen, and the delivery.
“I found it just really interesting because I felt like it was sort of a step in the right direction,” Nneji says. “We saw that there was a rise of food delivery aggregators, but it was still massively inefficient.”
With an initial investment of N10 million (approximately $19,000 at the time) from his entrepreneur father, Frank who founded Nigerian transportation company, ABC Transport, Nneji co-founded FoodCourt with Paul Iruene.
They launched in August 2021, operating out of an existing restaurant kitchen. The early days were chaotic — challenging locations, an unexpected relocation, and strained resources. Yet, each setback taught Nneji and his team invaluable lessons about the nuances of the Nigerian market.
Their breakthrough came when they secured their own second space and refined their model to a multi-brand kitchen operation with the understanding of local demand and the rolling out of tailored food concepts, from traditional staples to experimental cuisines.
Statista estimates the user penetration rate in the meal delivery market in Nigeria to be 16.2% this year, while the number of users is expected to reach 52 million by 2029.
The platform’s controlled production and delivery process gave them an edge over traditional aggregators and allowed them to reportedly grow revenue by 80% over the past 12 months, making over $4.3 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
The company which now operates with 16 food concepts, serving over 15,000 monthly active users and two locations in Lagos, is preparing to expand to Nigeria’s capital Abuja, other African markets and the United States.
“Our model gives us limitless flexibility. We can hyper-localize menus for any market,” Nneji says.
Despite the accolades and exponential growth, FoodCourt remains grounded, driven by a mantra centered on good food and exceptional service.
“We’ve had a lot of bad days, but I don’t remember a day that I felt like giving up or felt it was over…VC [venture capital] winter prompted us to be very, very prudent with just how we saw the landscape of things,’’ says Nneji.
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