SOUTH AFRICA – Quench, South African same-day delivery startup has obtained an undisclosed amount of funding from Imvelo Ventures to help it build brand awareness and establish more partnerships across the country.
According to reports by Disrupt, the app-based on-demand delivery platform is seeking to launch a fully-integrated back-end system with a new consumer-facing app for “Quench Marketplace” in April.
The new B2C channel is created to empower suppliers, manufacturers, wine farms, produce farms and many more to sell, advertise and distribute off Quench’s infrastructure.
“Our long-term focus remains to ensure growth with our current retail partners, Woolworths, Dis-Chem and Ultra Liquor, along with expanding our restaurant delivery footprint through delivery platform Mr Yum South Africa.”
Quench founder – Liam McCreedy
Founded in 2016, Quench has evolved from being an alcohol delivery platform to delivery of groceries, food, medication, and alcohol to customers in major centres across South Africa partnering with leading retailers.
“The investment will assist Quench in growing brand awareness and expanding partnerships throughout the country,” said Quench founder Liam McCreedy.
“Our long-term focus remains to ensure growth with our current retail partners, Woolworths, Dis-Chem and Ultra Liquor, along with expanding our restaurant delivery footprint through delivery platform Mr Yum South Africa. More immediately, our attention will be focused on escalating our offering across multiple industries.”
The startup has seen significant growth over the last year given the effects of Covid-19 which has overall thrust the growth of the ecommerce and food delivery sector.
It has now secured funding from Imvelo Ventures, a South African venture capital firm founded by Capitec Bank and Empowerment Capital Investment Partners.
Imvelo Ventures identifies and funds promising South African small and medium enterprises in the broad spectrum of financial technology, and its investment will help Quench continue to grow.
Meanwhile, Cape Town-based food-tech company UCOOK has added baby food to its existing meal kit delivery service.
“Excellent nutrition paired with healthy convenience has been at the heart of our operation since inception. It made sense to serve the needs of the whole family to make the lives of our primary consumers that much easier.
“We strive to deliver the freshest ingredients from a range of small-scale farmers across the country, and the ethos extends to the development of our baby range,” said David Torr, CEO of UCOOK.
The ready-made baby range of food is available for all the stages of weaning of babies and is made from fresh, whole ingredients that have no added preservatives or sugar.
The new meals are freezable for up to three-months. In an ode to maintaining environmentally production measures, the ready-made baby food products are delivered in recyclable tubs with a spoon.
Within the baby food category, various meal kits cater to the age and weaning stage of a baby and are presented in individual tubs.
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