Eden Life Announces $1.4m Seed Round to Build Africa’s First Home Services App

Africa’s foremost home services app, Eden Life, has completed a $1.4m seed round. The funding round was led by UK based LocalGlobe. Some organisations who also participated include Future Africa, Samurai Incubate, Village Global, Rising Tide Africa and Enza Capital.

Eden Life is an Africa’s home services app used for scheduling food, laundry and cleaning services. The funding round brings Eden Life’s total investment so far to $2m after the pre-seed support from all of Andela’s original co-founders, and additional accelerator program over the last 18 months.

The recent capital raised will be used to build Eden Life’s in-house technology, and develop world-class kitchens and operations hubs. The new tech-based platform will improve and grow Africa’s service industry.

Eden Life app was established in 2019 by three former Andelans, and nicknamed “the concierge of comfort.” The app was built for busy Lagos professionals who are hard-pressed for time due to long working hours. This makes them struggle to source dependable, efficient and trustworthy home service providers.

The app offers users a subscription service which delivers high quality chef-cooked meals, home cleaning, laundry service and as well as tracking progress on all their services. The app is available on Google Play and the App Store. Users who subscribe to one or more of the services can set the frequency of the services they want delivered.

An average Eden Life user typically uses two services five times per week and most first timers usually start off with food delivery before picking up additional services. The target audience includes remote workers, creatives, tech engineers, developers and executives.

Eden Life is removing barriers to finding reliable household services in the city and has already picked up 600+ customers. They have a growing loyal following with a 92% monthly retention rate with over 70% new customers coming via referrals.

Eden Life’s proprietary technology platform enables users to continually give feedback on all aspects of service, using data to compile preferences and offer suggestions through user feedback. The app includes delivery time tracking, payments and billing, and user notifications.

The chores are overseen by “Gardeners” - the human side of Eden Life, who are trained professionals who work with Eden Life service providers and end users to ensure there’s a seamless service and transaction. The app’s robust architecture has enabled Eden Life to deliver more than 60,000 services since launch.

“For many of our users, if they’re cooking or running errands, they’re not being productive; they don’t want distractions from their work, which is where Eden Life comes in,” said Nadayar Enegesi, Co-Founder at Eden Life and Co-founder at Andela. “We understand this scenario all too well. We are those people - so we basically designed a product with us in mind and realised that collectively, we are a pretty large market in Nigeria and have subsequently scaled Eden with other professionals from all walks of life who need simple tasks done with no fuss.”

Enegesi continued: “While we can’t create more time physically, we are offering access to a platform that delivers a seamless mix of household services, so that busy professionals can focus on their work and leisure. We’re excited to scale our platform to offer so much more, and continue to offer some of the highest quality services underpinned by world-class technology and a highly trained team of professionals.”

A vertical integration strategy, fuelled by the seed funding, will ensure Eden can own and manage its entire supply chain and deliver its services without the need for third party providers by having a physical footprint where chefs prepare meals, laundry can be processed quickly and cleaners receive training to provide a high quality service.

Having launched with three core services - those most fundamental to making the home a sanctuary - Eden Life will be rolling out many more over the coming months to make the app a one-stop tool to manage household chores and personal life.

“We fell in love with Eden Life’s vision for the future of home services in Africa. A true customer obsession sits at the heart of everything they are building - this is already visible in customer retention and other key metrics,” said Remus Brett, General Partner at LocalGlobe. “As investors, we are always attracted to first-mover companies that launch products in untapped markets. The combination of this advantage with a core team who has proven experience building African tech to unrivalled levels sets Eden Life on an exciting path of growth.”

Recognised as one of the fastest growing continents globally, Africa is projected to have 100 cities with a population of over 1 million people by 2025.  The continent also has the fastest growing middle class with rapidly increasing spending power, due to its growing tech sector. Eden Life wants to revolutionise the home service market by making life easier for time-poor tech professionals and executives. This will help channel their time into more productive activities and more quality leisure time.

About Eden

Eden is Africa’s first home services app designed for busy professionals and executives without time to carry out household chores. Launched in 2019, the company delivers the highest quality chef-cooked meals, laundry and cleaning services at the tap of a finger across Lagos.

About Local Globe VC

Local Globe is a UK-based venture capital firm that focuses on seed and impact investments. Seeding ambitious UK founders since 1999, some of the projects they have invested in include Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Tweetdeck, Transferwise and Zoopla.