Trazo built a food delivery business in smaller cities. Now it wants to enter Lagos.

In 2019, Ikechukwu Nweze was trying to solve a problem in Asaba, in southern Nigeria, where he was based: ordering food online was difficult.

At the time, most venture-backed food delivery startups were focused on Lagos and Abuja, where higher population density and stronger consumer demand made logistics easier to scale. Mid-sized southern cities like Asaba and Warri were ignored.

Nweze, a computer science graduate who had spent years building and discarding failed startup ideas—including a social platform meant to compete with online forum Nairaland and an indigenous email service he called Vmail—believed there was an opportunity to build a hyperlocal food delivery business in underserved cities where digital commerce infrastructure was thin.

Together with co-founders Adinnu Benedict, Chiedu Victor, and Abanum Chukwuyenum—all software developers—he launched OliliFood in February 2020 with two restaurant vendors and two riders.

Building through Nigeria’s lockdown economy

The timing was uncomfortable. A few weeks after launch, the world entered the COVID-19 lockdown that locked out most commercial activity. Yet, for OliliFood, classified as an essential service, the crisis unexpectedly accelerated early adoption. 

Restaurants that once relied on foot traffic pivoted toward home deliveries, and the startup found itself with a new kind of customer.

“The lockdown made us realise delivery can work,” Nweze said. “We were able to serve the people of Asaba while many vendors cooked from home.”

Later in 2020, OliliFood launched a mobile app and began expanding into Warri, another mid-sized city in southern Nigeria.

Yet, operating outside Lagos came with structural limitations. Food delivery remains heavily concentrated in Nigeria’s larger commercial centres, where longer working hours, higher disposable income, and urban movement create stronger demand for convenience services. 

In smaller cities like Asaba, where commuting patterns are lighter and more residents work closer to home, food delivery frequency tends to be lower, said Nweze.

“Breaking even in a small city is quite challenging,” Nweze said. “If we had hoped to break even in the near future, I think we would have closed the business.”

The startup survived on bootstrapping. Outside the food delivery business, Nweze and his co-founders had built other products, most notably Vent Africa, a crypto and fintech platform launched in 2021, and Hizo, a cross-border foreign exchange service. 

Revenue from those ventures kept OliliFood running at a time when its food delivery unit alone could not cover its costs, said Nweze.

As Inflation accelerated across Nigeria over the past few years, operating costs rose sharply. Motorcycles that once cost ₦300,000 ($219) later sold for as much as ₦1.8 million ($1,313), and fuel costs climbed significantly after the removal of Nigeria’s petrol subsidy in 2023.

OliliFood adapted by developing a hybrid rider model, combining owned fleets with third-party logistics operators.

“You cannot rely fully on your in-house logistics, and you cannot rely fully on third-party logistics,” Nweze said. “There has to be a balance.”

The startup also changed how riders were compensated after discovering that some delivery workers used company-funded fuel allocations to run personal errands while delaying customer orders. 

Under its revised structure, riders earn a base salary plus commissions per completed delivery, while handling their own fuel expenses.

“We’ve been able to create a model that checks these riders compared to when we were buying fuel for them,” Nweze said.

Six years, two cities, and a new name

Six years after launch, OliliFood has processed over 120,000 orders and generated ₦2 billion ($1.5 million) in gross merchandise value (GMV) across Asaba and Warri, according to Nweze. 

It currently boasts about 25,000 total users—with roughly 500 monthly active customers—and operates a 20-rider network split between five in-house riders and 15 third-party logistics partners.

Now rebranded as Trazo, it plans to expand into Lagos and Abuja by the first quarter of 2027, positioning itself directly against established delivery players, including Chowdeck, Glovo, and new entrant Swoop in Lagos, as well as Heyfood in Abuja.

Yet, the scale gap that Trazo must bridge is significant. 

Glovo, which entered Nigeria in 2021, delivered 38 million items in the country last year and has invested over ₦37 billion ($27 million) locally; it now operates in 11 cities with over 2,000 active riders and more than 6,000 vendor partners. 

Chowdeck, the Y Combinator-backed Nigerian food delivery startup, saw its GMV grow more than sixfold in 2024, its last reported growth, and raised a $9 million Series A round the following year. It runs a 20,000-rider network across 14 cities. 

Nigeria’s online food delivery market, valued at around $1.14 billion in 2025, according to research firm IMARC Group, is largely contested between those two startups in Lagos, where delivery density and repeat-ordering frequency create compounding advantages for incumbents.

Against that backdrop, Trazo’s 500 monthly active customers, 20 riders, and $1.5 million in lifetime GMV paint a picture of a startup entering a different weight class.

The rebrand also reflects a strategic shift in the startup’s operations. It is expanding beyond restaurant delivery into groceries, pharmaceuticals, household essentials, gas refills, and eventually, home services like cleaning and spa bookings. 

The founders concluded that OliliFood’s original architecture and branding were holding the company back and decided to rebuild from scratch.

“The app itself couldn’t go full scale into other cities because of how it was built,” Nweze said. “And the name also limited us.”

The word “Olili,” he explained, is derived from an Igbo language expression associated with feasting and food, making it difficult to extend naturally into categories beyond restaurant delivery.

The argument for coming second

Nweze argues that building first in smaller cities forced the company to solve operational problems that bigger-city startups rarely encounter early on: inconsistent mapping systems, thin rider supply, low order density, and weaker consumer demand for delivery services. 

Those lessons, he believes, now give Trazo a fighting chance in harder markets.

“If a business in Lagos chooses to come down to Asaba, it will be easier for them to fail than for [Trazo] to go to Lagos,” he said. “When you have a startup that has faced a whole lot of environmental factors and limitations, and [is] still able to scale through it, what happens when [it] goes to a more ecosystem-friendly market?”

Trazo’s average order value ranges between ₦15,000 ($11) and ₦20,000 ($15), with average delivery costs around ₦2,500 ($1.82) per trip, said Nweze.

He noted that those unit economics, developed in a market where every naira had to work harder, could translate into a more competitive environment in Lagos and Abuja, where delivery expectations are significantly higher.

The mapping problem

One specific bet Trazo is making is on location intelligence. Nweze said the startup’s average delivery time is about 40 minutes, with vendor preparation times and customer location accuracy remaining two of its biggest operational bottlenecks. 

He noted that addressing systems and digital mapping infrastructure remain inconsistent across Nigeria’s rapidly expanding urban areas.

“Nigeria’s cities are not properly geomapped; one major problem is that when new roads or locations emerge, they are often not updated quickly on Google Maps,” he said. “We’re using data from our deliveries to build an AI-powered mapping system that improves itself as more users interact with the platform.”

The startup has also introduced a ‘pay-for-me’ feature that allows users to place and pay for orders on behalf of others, and plans to deploy its mapping system as it expands into Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Benin over the coming years.

Trazo is entering these new markets without external funding, said Nweze. It has been entirely bootstrapped since inception, and the founder said it is not actively seeking venture capital despite its expansion plans.

Yet, he is betting that surviving six years in Nigeria’s smaller cities has prepared the startup for a tougher competitive environment.

“We almost shut down,” Nweze said. “But staying in these cities taught us how to build lean, manage logistics, and understand delivery from the ground up. Now we believe it’s time to grow.”