Swoop Raises $7.3M Seed for Nigeria Food Delivery Expansion

Swoop, an Eswatini-based food delivery startup, has raised $7.3 million in seed funding to expand into Nigeria and pursue a super-app model outside its home country for the first time, according to the funding announcement. The round is backed by Silicon Valley investors including Long Journey, Variant, Version One, Dune Ventures, Soma Capital, and Zero Knowledge Ventures, as well as African investor Base Capital and Walter Kortschak.

Funding and Market Opportunity

Swoop’s seed raise ranks among the largest disclosed by an African consumer startup. The company plans to use the funding to build out a consumer platform starting with food delivery, targeting Yaba, a neighborhood in Lagos Mainland already served by competitors including Chowdeck, Glovo, and FoodCourt.

According to Nigerian payments processor Paystack, which processes payments for Swoop and major food delivery companies in Nigeria, the sector grew by 187% between 2021 and 2024. Swoop believes Nigeria’s food delivery market—valued at $1.1 billion in 2025—has significant room for growth, with the real opportunity lying in converting non-consumers rather than poaching existing users, according to Demola Adesina, Swoop’s Nigerian country manager.

“We think that the food delivery space in Nigeria is still significantly under-penetrated. Our target is not existing consumption but the users that are not consuming,” Adesina said. “We are not getting into a war with other platforms. We are trying to grow the pie.”

Company Background and Launch

Swoop, formerly known as Thumo, launched in Eswatini in August 2025 and acquired 6,000 users in its first month, according to co-founder Aubrey Niederhoffer. Co-founder Edwin Ruiz stated the goal was to build a pan-African super app combining food, groceries, and rides.

Business Model

Swoop uses a network of independent riders rather than an employed fleet. The company generates revenue through commissions on restaurant sales and customer handling fees. Riders retain 100% of delivery fees, while Swoop applies a 7% service charge to fund operations. Adesina declined to disclose the startup’s fee structure or unit economics, stating that current fees are low because the priority is user acquisition.

“Our approach is to find the reason why some people are not consuming [through food delivery] and to make them consumers. We are not just slashing prices and getting into a price war,” Adesina said.

Super-App Strategy

Swoop selected food delivery as the first vertical in its multi-product approach to acquire daily customers and create app habit formation. According to Adesina, food delivery serves as a metric for ecosystem development: “If you get food delivery right, you can essentially be the node of the ecosystem.”

“We believe that if we have a group of customers around that node, we are able to translate that into other areas and verticals,” Adesina said, adding that Swoop will let users determine the next vertical to launch. This strategy mirrors the approach of OPay, one of Nigeria’s largest fintechs, which initially bundled food delivery and ride-hailing with its payments wallet to drive daily usage before shutting down the non-fintech products.

Competitive Landscape

Nigeria’s food delivery sector is highly contested. Chowdeck, the largest food delivery platform in Nigeria, serves two million registered users with over 20,000 riders operating across 14 cities in Nigeria and Ghana while maintaining profitability. According to Jumia’s 2022 financial report, its food delivery arm lost $1.80 for every $10 it made, with logistics and marketing costs exceeding order revenue. Jumia eventually shut down its food delivery business in late 2023.

Adesina cited regulatory confidence and market education as factors supporting Swoop’s entry: “There is more confidence regarding regulatory risk, and international investors committing capital to us proves that. Beyond that, I am passionate about Nigerians. There is better market education and more interest in positively changing consumer habits. We think this is the perfect time to build on that.”

Success Factors

Swoop’s success will depend on three factors: what it builds after food delivery and in what order, a monetization strategy ensuring profitability, and whether it can scale beyond Yaba and Lagos before cash runs out. The startup’s strategy will require acquiring high-volume, lower-income customers on the outskirts of Lagos and in smaller cities, where local restaurants and quick-service outlets dominate, to create a new set of food delivery consumers.