Ordermentum’s really on a roll now with excellent feedback from customers and a long list of new leads, including some from the bigger end of town, following its $16 million capital raise and acquisition of Foodbomb last week.

Ordermentum was already Australia’s leading ordering and payments platform for the wholesale food and beverage industry. It then took a bigger bite of that market after buying wholesale food marketplace Foodbomb to further accelerate its ambitious national growth strategy and pull the industry into the 21st century.

As part of the acquisition, Ordermentum also closed an oversubscribed capital round with follow-on investments from SEEK (ASX: SEK) co-founder Matt Rockman, Nudie Juices co-founder David Gordon and Perennial Private Ventures Fund.

Notable new investors participating, including Microequities Asset Management, Aditum Ventures (part of DIFC-based Aditum Investment Management Limited), and listed investment fund Touch Ventures.

The investment values the combined business at over $100 million – a long way from its inception in 2014 by dynamo CEO Adam Theobald and Andrew Low.

 

They grow up so fast…

Since its short-lived start-up days Ordermentum has grown rapidly into a company that processes more than $1 billion in orders annually for almost half Australia’s hospitality venues, including some of the country’s largest food and beverage suppliers.

Wholesale food and beverage suppliers come to Ordermentum to replace their clunky legacy processes with its digital platform, while Ordermentum’s 40,000 venues were the driving force behind the Foodbomb acquisition by demanding a ‘one-stop-shop’ for their needs.

“Both the Ordermentum and Foodbomb teams have built a deep understanding of the unique needs of food and beverage suppliers and hospitality venues,” Theobald said.

“Collectively, we have a commitment to bring together the best operators in the space in an easy to use ordering and payment platform that helps the entire industry save time and money.

“We see this acquisition as a chance to do more by adding over 100 fantastic suppliers for our venues to choose from and allowing us to invest more to help our suppliers find new customers and streamline their operations.

“The Ordermentum platform already generates over 25,000 leads for our suppliers every year.  We desperately need new suppliers around the country in fruit and vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood and smallgoods and we have long recognised that these are the verticals where Foodbomb are strong.

“We believe that this acquisition can accelerate our growth by two years… it’s a big win-win.”

 

Overcoming early issues

“When I co-founded the company in 2014 I recognised dual problems in the industry. On one side, venues complained about old-fashioned manual ordering and payment methods – phone, fax, email – and on the other side, food and beverage suppliers knew they needed to modernise and go digital, but didn’t know where to start,” Theobald said.

“Ordermentum began from that insight.  However, despite increased technology adoption in many parts of society (and the acceleration through COVID), many food and beverage suppliers are still living in a pad-and-paper world. Several suppliers during the pandemic told us they would have ‘gone under’ without our services, which is humbling.

“Sadly, we’re seeing a similarly challenging mix of macro-conditions, with cost-of-goods increases, wage inflation, and a potential recession.”

Foodbomb was founded in 2017 by Paul Tory and Josh Goulburn. Over the past 6 years, Foodbomb has processed $100 million in transactions, from 13,000 venues through its network of suppliers.

CEO Paul Tory had a similar insight to Theobald after spending 25 years in the wholesale meat industry.

“My family owned a butchery business and I’d find myself spending hours processing venue phone orders – many of which were indecipherable,” he said

“A guy would call to say ‘hey, it’s me, I’m after 50 steaks, thanks’. It was so inefficient and I thought there had to be a better way.

“Since the start of Foodbomb in 2017, I have long admired Ordermentum’s business, and more recently, we’ve had the privilege of getting to know Adam Theobald and the exceptional Ordermentum team as neighbours.

“The synergies between our two companies have always been evident, and when Adam approached us with the idea of merging late last year, I was immediately excited by the potential and Adam’s vision for the future of the industry.

“I have no doubt that the coming together of Ordermentum and Foodbomb will create an unrivaled powerhouse in the wholesale food and beverage industry.”

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Ordermentum, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.  

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

 

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