VDL Fulfilment, a technology based fulfilment start-up in Ghana has successfully secured its initial angel round of Investment from an African based venture builder, Boxplay Ventures.
VDL Fulfilment was founded 2 years ago by Vanessa Leonie-Mensah, a 22-year-old female entrepreneur. VDL pivoted from being a delivery company into a tech fulfilment start-up 6 months ago, and has since then, served over 5000 last mile customers, fulfilled over 128,000 orders and disbursed over $100,000 to its business partners who are using its services.
According to Vanessa, the founder of VDL, VDL works like the well-known Amazon Fulfilment but specifically designed for the African ecosystem to meet the specific needs of buyers and businesses. VDL Fulfilment helps online businesses reach customers anywhere in Africa. It does this by handling their storage, packaging, last mile delivery and customer service. Its operations are powered by its inventory & sales performance software, allowing businesses to save cost, track their revenues, inventory and deliveries.
Starting from Ghana, VDL has already established over 16 storage and fulfilment centres across Ghana, allowing its business partners to enjoy flat delivery rates, cash on delivery, and free storage for its products. Before the close of the year, VDL plans to spread its wings to other African countries like Nigeria and Kenya. Currently most of its business partners are from the Nigeria, UK, US, and Ghana, who are selling to customers across Ghana.
Boxplay Ventures identified VDL Fulfilment as a promising start-up that will disrupt the logistics ecosystem, and facilitate continental trade through sustainable, innovative, and reliable systems. Boxplay Ventures is a venture builder and angel investor building West African startups tackling Africa’s most challenging problems. It seeks to support transformational entrepreneurs who are building a better tomorrow.
According to the Managing Director at Boxplay, “Boxplay Ventures invests into driven, insightful, and eccentric founders with technology-driven business models. This will be our first investment in a woman-led start-up and we are even more excited about doing it at this time, when many women are least represented in the tech ecosystem in Africa”.
Vanessa, a first-class student and graduate of Aston University in the UK, moved to Ghana right after school to run her start-up. After a year of running, encountering challenges and listening to customers, its new model has birthed a vision to build 1 billion e-commerce entrepreneurs in Africa by 2050.
Learn more about VDL Fulfilment at www.vdlfulfilment.com and Boxplay Ventures at www.boxplayventures.com
