Top 5 Nigerian tech startups innovating the logistics sector in Q2

A tomato farmer in Kano harvests 500 crates of produce on a Monday morning.

By Friday, half of it had rotted, not because of bad farming, but because nobody had a fridge or refrigerated truck available, and the road to the market was a two-hour nightmare, long and tiring.

Meanwhile, there’s a small fashion brand in Lagos that’s losing customers every week because its deliveries take five days, and nobody tells the buyer where the package actually is. That’s Nigeria’s logistics problem in summary.

A new wave of Nigerian tech startups isn’t waiting for the government to fix the roads. They’re building smarter systems around the chaos, using APIs, real-time tracking, cold-chain technology, and data-driven route optimisation to move goods faster, cheaper, and more reliably than ever before.

According to TechCabal Insights, African startups raised $575 million across 58 deals between January and February 2026 alone, with logistics and transport capturing a growing share of capital as investors increasingly back companies building mobility and infrastructure systems. That’s not a trend anymore, it’s a structural shift.

Here are the five Nigerian logistics tech startups doing the most interesting work in Q2 2026.

Kobo360

If you’ve ever wondered how a container of goods gets from Apapa Port to a warehouse in Kano without disappearing into the informal freight market, Kobo360 is the company trying to answer that question.

Kobo360 is an African tech-enabled digital logistics platform, with its headquarters in Lagos, that connects cargo owners to truck owners, with a physical presence in six African countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast. Its mission is to simplify Africa’s logistics and supply chain by making it more efficient through technology.

What makes Kobo360 stand out is the depth of the problem it’s solving. Long-haul trucking in Nigeria has historically been a world of informal brokers, cash payments, zero tracking, and a lot of stolen goods. Kobo360’s platform matches cargo owners with truck owners to eliminate “empty runs” — wasted journeys where a truck travels without cargo, and this is key to keeping logistics costs down. In Africa, the cost of logistics as a percentage of GDP is almost double what it is in North America, according to data from logistics consulting firm Armstrong & Associates.

Drivers who join the platform get more than just work. Kobo360 launched KoPay (a payments product for drivers), KoboSafe (insurance), and KoboCare — a suite of driver services including HMO packages and family tuition assistance. Top clients include Honeywell, Olam, Unilever, Dangote, and DHL.

To date, Kobo360 has raised $86.2 million in total funding, with investors including AAIC Investment, CardinalStone Capital Advisers, Chandaria Capital, and the International Finance Corporation.

The company is building what it calls the Global Logistics Operating System (G-LOS) — a blockchain-enabled platform designed to drive efficiency and affordability across the entire supply chain.

Chowdeck

This startup was founded in October 2021 by Femi Aluko, Olumide Ojo, and Lanre Yusuf — all former Paystack engineers. Chowdeck provides logistics services to food and hospitality vendors across 11 Nigerian and Ghanaian cities, enabling deliveries of meals, groceries, everyday essentials, and medicine in around 30 minutes. It has reached 1.5 million customers and over 20,000 riders to date.

In August 2025, Chowdeck raised $9 million in Series A funding led by Novastar Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, AAIC Investment, and others.

The company plans to open 500 dark stores by the end of 2026, adding two to three new stores per week, backed by hyperlocal logistics hubs designed to cut delivery times for groceries to under 20 minutes.

For e-commerce businesses, Chowdeck’s integration capabilities matter. By pairing dark stores with restaurant delivery and grocery services, and layering in POS software from its acquisition of Mira, Chowdeck is building a vertically integrated SaaS-plus-logistics platform that businesses can plug into directly, no manual fulfilment, no call centre, no chasing riders on WhatsApp.

TradeDepot

Walk into any small shop anywhere in Nigeria and the shelves tell a familiar story. Some items are there. Others have been “finished” for weeks. The restocking process is manual, relationship-based, and completely unpredictable. TradeDepot is fixing exactly that.

Founded in 2016 by Onyekachi Izukanne and his team, TradeDepot helps connect manufacturers directly to small retailers using digital tools. The company operates in major cities in Nigeria and has expanded to other parts of Africa.

TradeDepot provides credit, inventory visibility, and logistics coordination to improve the efficiency of last-mile product distribution. Its investors include Partech, IFC, and Novastar Ventures.

The numbers behind this market are staggering. Nigeria has an estimated 1.5 million small informal retailers, most of whom currently restock by physically travelling to wholesale markets, buying on credit from familiar faces, and hoping the goods are genuine. It’s an incredibly inefficient system that costs everyone money.

One retailer, Chibueze, described the impact directly: “It made it much easier for me to stock my store without leaving my location. There was no need for me to go to the market and their prices are good.”

For B2B suppliers and manufacturers, TradeDepot’s platform means direct access to thousands of verified retailers, with logistics, inventory management, and even working capital solutions built in. No more layers of middlemen eating into margins.

TradeDepot is among the top funded logistics tech startups in Nigeria, operating at Series A level and beyond, proving that investors see long-term value in digitising what is still by a wide margin the dominant form of retail commerce in the country.

Kwik Delivery

Kwik is the one that the tech crowd talks about whenever the conversation turns to delivery API integration in Nigeria. And for good reason.

Kwik Delivery’s API specialises in rapid last-mile deliveries across Lagos and Abuja, and is widely used by SMEs and developers building e-commerce platforms that need delivery automation built directly into the checkout experience.

The API-first approach is what sets Kwik apart from traditional delivery companies. Launched in Lagos in June 2019, Kwik Delivery is an on-demand delivery platform focusing on the B2B and B2B2C market. “Thanks to this API, merchants and companies from all industrial sectors in need of rapid on-demand deliveries will be able to fully automate the implementation of our last-mile, urban delivery solution and integrate it with e-procurement or e-commerce platforms,” explained Olivier Decrock, co-founder and CTO of Africa Delivery Technologies, which operates the Kwik platform.

In practice, that means an online fashion store, a pharmacy, or a food vendor can set up Kwik as their delivery engine, and the moment a customer checks out, an order is automatically created, a rider is dispatched, and real-time tracking is pushed to the customer. No manual uploads, no phone calls to a dispatcher, no copy-pasting order details into a spreadsheet.

Kwik Delivery focuses on last-mile delivery in Lagos and Abuja, with an app-based service connecting businesses and individuals with bike and van couriers, a strong choice for fast urban deliveries with same-day and next-day options and flexible payment methods including cash on delivery, bank transfers, and mobile money.

For any Nigerian e-commerce business looking to plug last-mile delivery directly into their checkout, Kwik’s developer-friendly API is currently one of the most practical options on the market.

ColdHubs

Nigeria annually loses at least $9 billion to food wastage, largely due to poor cold chain logistics. The products most affected include fresh produce, dairy, seafood, poultry, vaccines, and medicines. Experts estimate that each year, about 11 million metric tons of fresh fruits and vegetables are transported across Nigerian cities — which should require a minimum of 25,000 refrigerated trucks. Nigeria currently has fewer than 1,000.

ColdHubs installs solar-powered cold rooms directly in farm clusters and market locations, putting cold storage where farmers and traders actually are, rather than expecting them to transport goods to a distant facility first.

ColdHubs uses its innovation and clean energy, specifically solar-powered refrigerated infrastructure to reduce food waste and increase food security. The UN has revealed that food wastage per citizen in Nigeria is the highest in Africa, with Nigerians losing at least 189 kilograms of food per person every year, resulting in approximately 37.9 million metric tons of food waste annually.

The model is genuinely practical. Farmers pay a small daily fee to store their produce. They keep their goods fresh longer, sell at better prices, and waste significantly less. Pharmaceutical distributors use the same infrastructure to maintain cold chains for vaccines and temperature-sensitive medicines, a critical need in a country where healthcare supply chains have historically been unreliable.

The Nigerian government has also taken note, implementing the National Cold Chain Policy in 2023 aimed at improving the efficiency of cold chain logistics — creating a more supportive regulatory environment for startups like ColdHubs operating in this space.

Why This Matters for Your Business Right Now

If you sell products online, manage a supply chain, or run any operation that moves physical goods in Nigeria, these five startups aren’t just interesting stories, they’re tools you can use.

Kobo360 handles your long-haul freight with real-time tracking. Chowdeck gets your products to urban customers in under 30 minutes. TradeDepot connects your brand directly to thousands of informal retailers. Kwik Delivery plugs into your checkout via API. And ColdHubs keeps your temperature-sensitive products viable from farm to shelf or pharmacy to patient.

Funding data shows logistics and transportation startups are now receiving major investor attention, think delivery tech, smart routing, and electric transport solutions, and the infrastructure being built right now will define how Nigerian commerce operates for the next decade.

Before you can take full advantage of logistics technology in Nigeria, though, you’ll need to make sure your business is properly registered. If you’re setting up or formalising a logistics operation, start by understanding how to register your logistics company with NIPOST. It’s the regulatory foundation everything else is built on.

Key Takeaways

• Startups are heavily focusing on last-mile delivery tracking, giving both businesses and customers real-time visibility
• Cold-chain logistics are reducing agricultural and pharmaceutical waste that costs Nigeria billions every year
• E-commerce businesses can now integrate delivery APIs directly into their checkouts, cutting manual fulfilment entirely

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is last-mile delivery so expensive in Lagos?

Last-mile delivery in Lagos is expensive for several overlapping reasons. Traffic congestion, particularly around Apapa, Lagos Island, and Victoria Island, dramatically increases journey times and fuel costs. Poor road infrastructure forces couriers to take longer routes or use motorbikes that can carry limited cargo. Concerns like riders’ safety, low customer trust, poor infrastructure, and high operational costs all contribute to the cost burden facing last-mile delivery companies in Nigeria.

Add to that the challenge of inaccurate addresses, Lagos has no standardised addressing system, and you’ve got a recipe for expensive, inefficient final-mile delivery. Startups like Kwik and Chowdeck are tackling this through dark stores, hyperlocal logistics hubs, and better geolocation tools, but the structural challenges haven’t disappeared overnight.

How can e-commerce businesses integrate delivery APIs in Nigeria?

In Nigeria, several delivery APIs have become central to e-commerce growth: GIG Logistics API is widely used by SMEs and large enterprises for nationwide deliveries, while Kwik Delivery API specialises in rapid last-mile deliveries across Lagos and Abuja.

To integrate, you typically register as a business on the provider’s platform, receive API credentials, and use their developer documentation to connect your checkout system. When a customer completes an order, the API automatically creates a delivery request, assigns a courier, and sends tracking updates in real time. The main challenges to watch out for are coverage gaps outside major cities, connectivity issues in areas with poor internet, and ensuring your customer data handling complies with Nigeria’s Data Protection Regulation (NDPR).

What is cold chain logistics and why does Nigeria need it urgently?

Cold chain logistics refers to the unbroken sequence of temperature-controlled handling, from storage to transportation to delivery, for perishable goods like fresh produce, dairy, seafood, and pharmaceuticals. Post-harvest losses for fruits and vegetables in Nigeria currently stand at 40%, largely due to the absence of adequate cold chain infrastructure.

That means nearly half of what Nigerian farmers grow never reaches a consumer. For the pharmaceutical sector, the consequences are even more serious, vaccines and temperature-sensitive medicines that aren’t properly stored lose efficacy, putting patients at risk. Startups like ColdHubs are addressing this by bringing solar-powered cold storage directly to farmers and market traders, dramatically reducing spoilage without requiring expensive infrastructure investment from the farmers themselves.

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