Godiragetse Fareed Mogajane is a man in possession of a bona fide entrepreneurial spirit.
The founder of Delivery Ka Speed — ‘Speedy Delivery’ in Sepitori, and the second business of the enterprising 24-year-old — looked at the limitations that render bigger food delivery services inept in the townships, and saw opportunity.
The townships’ patchwork of unmapped streets make it impossible for delivery companies relying on digital maps to service those areas, leaving millions of customers off the take-out food delivery grid, and hungry for an innovative, black-owned, quintessentially South African company to fill the gap.
Enter Delivery Ka Speed, a hot-footed township food delivery service that employs locals familiar with the area’s layout to deliver fast food to residents’ doorsteps. Using mainly bicycles and electric scooters as transport, Delivery Ka Speed drivers are now earning a living, providing a much-needed boost to a struggling local economy and a new avenue of income for the township’s unemployed youth.
Providing work opportunities for local young people through the gig economy is a fundamental motivator for Mogajane. “We’ve actually introduced bicycles as a mode of transport,” he told eNCA. “The reason for that is again so that the young people in the townships can now start doing deliveries without any driver’s licence.” To this end, Delivery Ka Speed’s insulated food delivery bags are designed as backpacks, with shoulder straps that allow them to be easily carried while riding a bicycle.
Founded in Mogajane’s hometown of Hammanskraal in July 2021, Delivery Ka Speed originally fielded orders via a WhatsApp chatbot and employed just a handful of drivers. By the end of the year, the burgeoning delivery service had processed over 6 500 orders, hired over 20 drivers, employed over 10 administrative staff, and surpassed R1 million in revenue, all in just five short months. Delivery Ka Speed now also operates in Soshanguve, Mabopane, and Johannesburg East , with plans to expand to all of Gauteng’s major townships — and beyond.
In April this year, Delivery Ka Speed launched their mobile app, and with close to 5000 registered users to date, adoption is steadily climbing. Through the app, users are now able to view restaurant menus in their vicinity, place orders, and seamlessly pay by card online. The app even includes functionality for customers to help drivers find their addresses by mentioning well-known local landmarks like schools, trees, or buildings.
“Here’s someone who’s trying to start a business to generate employment and fulfil a service,” says David Smith, CEO of Adumo Online, the payment gateway processing payments for Delivery Ka Speed’s app. “It’s such a compelling story that it was a case of, well, how could we not support these guys? They’re exactly the sort of growth business you want to start a journey with.”
Impressed with Mogajane’s business smarts and Delivery Ka Speed’s innovative approach, Adumo Online has significantly reduced the overheads usually associated with processing online payments for the promising young company. “I think that’s critical for a start-up; they can’t absorb big upfront costs or large committed monthly fees. When you’re trying to start a business, you don’t know what you’re going to get day to day,” says Smith. “We want to be a business that supports growth, and this was a perfect opportunity to put those words into action.”
This ability and willingness to engage with small, fledgling merchants, while having the heft to service enterprise clients like Herbalife, is a hallmark of Adumo Online’s agile approach. “We’re really lucky to have a core team who can deliver across that scope,” says Smith, adding that Adumo Online’s relatively small team brings a depth of experience and expertise to the industry. Part of South Africa’s largest independent payment processing conglomerate, the Adumo Group, Adumo Online is an online payment solution that supports multiple payment types across all ecommerce channels.
In Smith’s view, Adumo Online’s relationship with Delivery Ka Speed is a harbinger of more exciting developments ahead. “It’s given us impetus to find more opportunities like this in South Africa,” says Smith. “It’s part of the reason why fintech is so big in South Africa; it’s an area where there’s new thought leadership, new opportunities being generated, and innovation happening constantly. So, how do we take that into some of the other market sectors?”