Rising Tide Africa, a women-led pan-African angel investment network, has committed up to ₦1.4 billion ($1 million) to Ororo Waste Management Limited, a Lagos-based used cooking oil (UCO) waste management company, to expand its collection infrastructure and working capital.
Ororo Waste, Lagos State’s partner for institutional-scale UCO collection and export, received the first allocation on September 16, with additional funding potentially available through December 16. The new capital will finance the purchase of used cooking oil from its collector network and cover hub operating costs.
The investment comes as Ororo Waste attempts to scale a business around Nigeria’s used cooking oil waste stream. Nigeria consumes an estimated 1 million tons of vegetable oil and produces about 1.4 million metric tonnes of palm oil annually. However, there is little formal infrastructure to collect and recover used cooking oil after it is discarded, leaving much of the waste stream uncaptured.
Ororo is betting that the oil Nigerians treat as waste can become valuable for global biofuel markets and generate income for the people who collect it.
Originally published by TechCabal.