Best Food Tech Companies in South Africa
The 38 best Food Tech companies in South Africa in 2026, ranked by funding and momentum. Funding, investors, founders, valuation, tech stack and live signals. Top: OrderIn.
- The Evolving Food Tech Market: Trends and Opportunities for Growth
- Love for personal care brands peaks in the mornings ; food tech/delive
Our analysis of 100 Food Tech companies
$12.9b in tracked funding; 88% of the stack-profiled cohort runs cloud-native; funding activity peaked in 2025.
Ranked: Best Food Tech companies in South Africa
| # | Company | Disclosed funding | Last round | Stage | Founder | Founded | Tech stack | Recent signals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OrderIn Online food ordering platform | $25M | 55 mo ago | Deadpooled | — | 2013 | — | — |
| 2 | De Novo Foodlabs Provider of protein ingredients processing services | $4M | 24 mo ago | Seed | Leah Bessa Co-Founder & CSO | 2021 | — | — |
| 3 | Mapha Online platform offering food delivery services | $100K | 48 mo ago | Funding Raised | Tshidiso Vatsha Co-Founder | 2017 | Cart FunctionalityWordPressMySQL+24 | — |
| 4 | Matrix Software Provider of ERP software solutions for meat and food processing industry | — | 63 mo ago | Seed | — | 2005 | WordPressMySQLPHP+23 | 2 job openings |
| 5 | Asha Offers digital menu solutions for restaurants | — | — | Deadpooled | Joe Mabija Founder | 2017 | — | — |
| 6 | BRAVETech Provider of AI and cloud-based IoT solutions for the beverage industry | — | — | Unfunded | Keith McLintock Co-Founder & Managing Director | 2016 | — | — |
| 7 | Cheep App-based online discovery platform for restaurant deals | — | — | Unfunded | Kayli Vee Levitan Co-Founder | 2017 | — | — |
| 8 | Click2Chow Online platform to order food from partnered restaurant | — | — | Deadpooled | Lofty Oelofse Founder | 2015 | — | — |
Top 4 Food Tech companies in South Africa
#1
Seed · Cape Town, Western Cape · founded 2021 · 8 employees$4Mraised▾
Provider of protein ingredients processing services
- Aug 2024Seed$1.5M
- 2022Seed$2.5M
#2
Deadpooled · Cape Town, Western Cape · founded 2013 · 94 employees$24.6Mraised▾
Online food ordering platform. It offers online food ordering platform that lets users, based on their location select a restaurant of their choice and place an order for delivery or pickup. Users can browse the menu of the listed restaurants. Once an order is placed it is relayed to the partner restaurant. The partner restaurant then delivers the food to the customer's address.
- Jan 2022Series A$4.7M
- 2020Series A$6.9M
- Seed$427K
- Seed$2.5M
#3
Funding Raised · Johannesburg, Gauteng · founded 2017$100Kraised▾
Online platform offering food delivery services. The platform allows users to order food and grocery products from local stores. The platform also offers pickup services. The platform also offers products like beauty care, fashion, home care, etc.
- Sep 2022Grant (prize money)$100K
#4
Seed · Vereeniging, Gauteng · founded 2005 · 25 employees—raised▾
Provider of ERP software solutions for meat and food processing industry. Its solutions include stock management, traceability solutions, and more.
- Jun 2021Seed—
Funding & investor landscape
Notable founders
Market landscape — 10 sub-themes by coverage
Share of Food Tech coverage by sub-theme.
Regulatory-risk over time rising
Funding & growth over time
funding rising · growth rising
How research on Food Technology is moving in South Africa
A read on the academic research around Food Technology — which themes are gaining ground, the institutions and researchers driving them, and how the tone is shifting. Based on 524 South Africa-affiliated papers.
- University of Pretoria75
- University of Johannesburg58
- University of KwaZulu-Natal54
- North-West University43
- University of South Africa37
- Food security5
- Food safety4
- Food science2
- Food processing2
- Quality (philosophy)2
- Food processing1→23
- Food safety1→17
- Food systems1→10
- Population1→5
- Antimicrobial1→4
- Food safety7→69
- Food security14→73
- Agriculture8→52
- Food systems5→42
- Food processing3→31
Where food tech is researched across South Africa
Location clusters by institution affiliation — each city's volume, stance tone, and a quick read on its hot topic, what's advancing, the opening opportunity, and the main concern.
Common questions
Rohit lives in the feed. He covers what's moving right now — the funding rounds, launches and shifts breaking across the trade press — and ties them back to where the sector is heading.