Vendease lays off 9% of its workforce

Nigerian food procurement startup Vendease laid off 9% of its workforce, or 27 of its almost 300 staff last week, according to a company statement.

This comes after the food procurement platform, which offers African food businesses access to supplies, financial services, and other support, bagged $30M million in a Series A funding round led by Partech Africa and TLcom in September 2022.

The company, however, confirmed that the decision to adjust its headcount was made to address performance-related issues and was not related to the current global economic downturn.

"To continue this remarkable growth and success, we had to make the difficult decision to adjust our headcount. This was done to address performance issues we had identified within the team. Every employee that has been affected by this adjustment has been offered a comprehensive severance package that will adequately compensate them for any inconvenience caused by the decision," the statement read.

Vendease says it is now in the process of recruiting staff to replace the outgoing employees.

“We are already in the process of actively recruiting suitable replacements for many of the affected roles, and we are looking forward to continued growth and profitability for Vendease," according to the company.