Ghanaian food delivery startup Koliko is planning on expanding across the country after seeing hundreds of users utilise its service during its pilot and early months of full operations.
Founded by Julius Asante and Osborn Amankwah after they graduated from university, Koliko was beta-tested between September 2019 and January 2020, and launched in February.
The startup is a food delivery platform giving users the freedom to choose what they eat by providing a mobile app that features a curated menu from local restaurants and food vendors. It also helps users pick healthy meals by providing nutritional information about meals on the platform.
“Our aim is to help people satisfy their cravings by connecting them to restaurants and food vendors in their locality. In doing so we are empowering small restaurants and food vendors in increasing their revenue by giving them access to a greater number of customers,” Asante told Disrupt Africa.
The two founders came up with the idea for the platform while undergraduates, and having realised how unsatisfactory the food delivery system was.
“Market research we conducted showed the average young professional spends about 10 hours at work having little time to cook their own meals, and therefore orders takeout, but they have little or no control over how healthy their meals are,” said Asante.
“Competitors already in the space do not help users to pick meals that are healthy and meet their nutritional needs. Moreover, most of the available platforms focus only on high-end restaurants, leaving out the small restaurants and local food vendors.”
Koliko has seen strong uptake of its solution addressing these issues. So far it has almost 1,000 users who have processed over 6,000 orders.
“The response from our users has so far been positive,” Asante said.
This is especially the case given Koliko has thus far only launched in Sunyani, a city in western Ghana that at the last count had a population of barely 75,000.
“We started by targeting tertiary students and young professionals in Sunyani because there is a large market and little competition here, so we saw it as a place we can start and test our proof of concept,” Asante said. “We seek to expand to Accra, Kumasi and Tamale in Ghana, and Nigeria and Kenya in future.”
The startup, which charges a delivery fee on orders as well as a commission, has taken on some capital from the Tony Elumelu Foundation, but will need more funding to scale.
“Koliko was funded with this grant and founder capital, and we are looking to raise additional funding to help us achieve our vision,” said Asante.
