Series A

Series B

Debt Financing

Others

Seed

Pre-Seed

Rest of World

Kuwait

Mohammed Jaffar

Abdulaziz Al Loughani

Ahmed El Morsy

Mohammed AlMunifi

If you're ready to take your business to the next level with Faith Capital, we want to hear your pitch.

Investment in Startup

Faith Capital

E-Commerce

Faith Capital is a venture capital firm investing in talented MENA founders building long-term value by developing sound operations at home and abroad.Based in Kuwait capital fund owned and managed by individuals with proven business experience and success in the GCC.

Riyadh

Series C

Nana Direct

Grocery

Grocery shopping and delivery platform that offers grocery and other home essentials delivery.

Foodics

Software Dev/Test

Foodics is a restaurant management system that manages sales, transactions, inventory, employee schedules, and customer relationships.

Floward

Floward is an online flowers and gifts eCommerce solution sourced from local and international brands with same-day delivery schedules.

Abu Dhabi

Lyve Global

Information Technology

Logistics

SaaS

IT & Communication

Lyve is a B2B SaaS platform empowering businesses to digitize their customers’ journey from order to payment to delivery.

Dubai

Eyewa

Eyewa offers prescription contact lenses, color contact lenses, sunglasses, and eyeglasses.

California

Augmented Reality

VUZ is a social app that allows users to stream and experience XR and the Metaverse.

JustClean

KLC Virtual Restaurants

Restaurants

Foodtech

KLC Virtual Restaurants is a multi-brand virtual restaurant company focused on delivering delicious food.

Kaso (Elkaso)

Kaso (formerly ElKaso) is an online B2B platform that facilitates order processing and communication between restaurants and suppliers.

MealPlanet

MealPlanet is the first marketplace for meal plans in the UAE. Our goal is to offer customers convenience, flexibility, variety and a lifestyle solution when signing up to a meal plan.

Fakespot

AI/IoT

Crowd Analyzer

Analytics

Crowd Analyzer offers tools for brands and agencies monitor, analyze, and activate digital crowds.

The List

Yougotagift.com

YOUGotaGift is the leading marketplace for digital gift cards in the Middle East.

Cognna

Computer

Cybersecurity

Security

Cognna, a leading cybersecurity startup, is on a mission to simplify cybersecurity with their innovative platform to empower users by providing effective tools to detect, prevent, and resolve threats effortlessly.

CaptainPanel

Manama

Playbook

Education

EdTech

PLAYBOOK, a digital platform that serves as a toolkit for women learners to design their career and well-being, we embrace a "full potential" scenario in which women participate in the economy identically to men by providing world-class educational masterclasses delivered by the most successful women in the world, focusing on preparing women for the 133 million jobs of the future.

inagrab

Technology

Big Data

Mobile Apps

Apps

Inagrab is a company with a mission to bridge the gap between businesses and people by monetizing word of mouth using their core product called Dalooni. Dalooni is platform connects businesses with a sales force consisting of the everyday individual without technically paying them a salary, and helps the unemployed youth of the MENA Region getaccess to a source of income and enhance their business development capabilities gradually.

Snapbook

Publishing

Established in 2015, Snapbook is the MENA region’s leading and only full-fledged Internet photo publishing service, with customers from all over the world. With both mobile and web applications, Snapbook creates amazing photo books, high-resolution prints, unique mobile cases, and much more, making their products the ideal personalized gift.

Snapbook also offers customers services that are unique in the region, such as a fully realized pink service (an all-female production team), Cash on Delivery, and exclusive partnerships with regional delivery suppliers.

BulkWhiz

Justmop

Service Industry

One Click Delivery Services

Logistics & Storage

Dalooni

Advertising Services

Lyft

Transportation

Ride Sharing

Justlife

Cleaning

Keno

Automotive

Cars

Information Services

Keno is an on-demand car service app that comes directly to the user based on their GPS location. They use on-demand dry wash technology to minimize the environmental impact and revolutionize the stagnant car care industry.

Oktopi

E-Learning

Kuwait-based flower and gift delivery service Floward has raised a $2.75 million investment round led by Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s Impact46 with participation from Faith Capital, BNK and other regional companies.

Founded in 2017 by Faith Capital&rsquo;s Abdulaziz al-Loughani, Floward offers its users fresh flowers and gifts online, a sector that has traditionally been dominated by the offline. The startup has been able to grow its current annualised revenue to more than $30 million. This latest round now pushes the startups total funding to $7 million.

&ldquo;Three founders from different backgrounds and different countries came together and dominated the gifting and flowers business over the course of three years,&rdquo; said Abdulaziz Alomran, founding partner of Impact46. &ldquo;This is the Khaliji dream-team.&rdquo;

Floward currently operates in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE and plans to launch in six more cities in the region before the end of the year.

Floward raises $2.75 million

Kuwait-based flower and gift delivery service Floward has raised a $2.75 million investment round led by Saudi Arabia’s Impact46 with participation from Faith Capital, BNK and other regional companies.

Founded in 2017 by Faith Capital’s Abdulaziz al-Loughani, Floward offers its users fresh flowers and gifts online, a sector that has traditionally been dominated by the offline. The startup has been able to grow its current annualised revenue to more than $30 million. This latest round now pushes the startups total funding to $7 million.

“Three founders from different backgrounds and different countries came together and dominated the gifting and flowers business over the course of three years,” said Abdulaziz Alomran, founding partner of Impact46. “This is the Khaliji dream-team.”

Floward currently operates in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE and plans to launch in six more cities in the region before the end of the year.

Foodics, a Saudi cloud-based point-of-sale system for F&amp;B businesses has raised $4 million in fresh funds, the startup announced today. The Pre-Series B investment comes from Riyadh Taqnia Fund (RTF), Kuwait-based Fatih Capital, and Riyadh-based Tech Invest Com and Naseel Holding. The round takes Foodics&rsquo; total investment raised so far to $8 million. The startup had raised its $4 million Series A in 2017.

Apparently, this round was also announced about two months ago but the financial details and names of investors (excluding Faith Capital) were missing from the previous statement.

Founded in 2014 by Ahmad Alzaini and Musab Alothmani,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.foodics.com/" target="_blank">Foodics</a>&nbsp;is an iOS-based point-of-sale system for F&amp;B outlets that runs on iPads, allowing these businesses to accept payments, monitor sales, send orders to the kitchen, digitize menus, manage employees and analyze the business with smart reports.

The startup plans to use this latest investment plans to become an all-in-one POS system with a payment processing device optimized for retailers. That&rsquo;s a very interesting move considering the fact that Foodics already has hundreds of businesses using its POS and would be willing to switch to its payment processing as it will obv. offer better integration and perhaps more competitive rates. Currently, the majority of retailers use Geidea devices in the Saudi market.

&ldquo;For the first time in Saudi Arabia and the GCC, a local company will provide a full POS solution with Payment terminal, which is designed to be fully integrated with every type of business. Foodics plans to make the innovative device fast, simple and secure in order to help corporate users better focus on their businesses,&rdquo; the company said in a statement.

The Foodics terminal that will first be introduced to the Saudi market and later rolled out to the rest of the Middle East (as Foodics software is being used almost all across the region) will allow businesses to easily key in a sale, quickly accept any form of payment, and print receipts, from one device.

Foodics also plans to launch web and Android-based version of its software, evolve its hardware and sell its solutions to new types of sellers (maybe its time for a rebrand).

&ldquo;The custom-built and expanded product features will allow retailers to instantly sync their items, stock, prices, and data over online and offline channels. The retail point-of-sale app will also help intuitively manage orders for both online and brick-and-mortar stores. Now not only F&amp;B businesses but also all retailers, from dry cleaners and florists, to clothing stores, will be able to use Foodics with its new vertical point-of-sale app,&rdquo; said the Riyadh-headquartered company in its statement today.

The startup, per statement, was recently accepted to Saudi Arabian Money Authority&rsquo;s (SAMA) Sandbox and is eligible to provide an all-in-one POS solution, facilitating the payment service to its clients.

Foodics co-founder and CEO, Ahmad Alzaini, commenting on the occasion, said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited to launch all our new products as it means we&rsquo;ll be serving more sellers and growing robust software. We&rsquo;re always going to proactively reach out to businesses as their changing needs are our inspiration.&rdquo;

Qusai Alsaif, a Senior Manager with Riyad Taqnia Fund and Foodics Board Member added, &ldquo;Foodics today is a major player in the market as it successfully managed to surpass its clients&rsquo; expectations. This is our second investment in Foodics and it marks a strong believe in the company future. We are particularly excited to support the Company&rsquo;s new FinTech initiative and leverage expertise in the area.&rdquo;

Saudi-based Foodics raises $4 million to expand its point-of-sale software for restaurants to all types of retail businesses, will also launch a payment processing device

Kuwait-based venture capital (VC) fund Faith Capital has announced a round of investment in Justmop, the UAE-based on-demand cleaning services platform.

Earlier this year Faith Capital invested $8 million in Kuwait-based laundry app JustClean and the fund is hoping this latest investment will create synergies between the two startups.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;re pleased to confirm our investment in Justmop, because we believe in this space and its capacity to grow,&rdquo; said Faith Capital and JustClean&rsquo;s chief executive officer Mohammed Jaffar. &ldquo;We believe equally in the company&rsquo;s synergies with JustClean and together we share a commitment to bring advancement in an industry that has historically been run without technology.&rdquo;

Justmop is currently operational across 11 cities in the GCC and allows users to schedule weekly, bi-weekly or one-off cleaning appointments.

&ldquo;We believe this partnership will enable us to achieve our vision of creating the go-to platform for anything related to home services. With this investment, we can enter an era where we sharply focus on the disruption of the conventional home cleaning space.&rdquo;

Faith Capital invests in Justmop

Bahrain-based Inagrab has secured an investment from Kuwait&rsquo;s Faith Captial, the Kuwaiti VC announced today in a statement, without disclosing the size of investment. The investment is part of Inagrab&rsquo;s ongoing seed round that also includes Bahrain Development Bank, 500 Startups, and Flat6Labs as investors.

Founded in 2017 by&nbsp;Hussain Haji and Dr. Mustafa Marhama,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.inagrab.com/" target="_blank">Inagrab</a>&nbsp;is an AI-powered deal assistant that optimizes seller performance by offering recommendations about when and where to promote the products. The platform&nbsp;does&nbsp;this by giving its users access to data from different sources and by providing contacts of potential companies/clients for lead generation.

It has recently also developed another product called Dalooni that connects businesses with individual sales agents who can sell different products and services on behalf of these businesses in exchange for a commission on every successful sale. Dalooni that is available as a mobile app for both sales agents and businesses also uses gamification to promote healthy competition between the sales agents and allows businesses to define their customer acquisition cost.

Hussain Haji, the Founder and CEO of Inagrab, commented, &ldquo;We embarked on a journey to bridge a very obvious gap and offer a solution that will both be beneficial for the Business owner and the individual (specifically the many in need of another source of income). That was proven by our quick growth since inception of Dalooni, and we believe it&rsquo;s time to grow outside the current borders into neighboring countries. We are honored to be Faith Capital&rsquo;s first investment in Bahrain and we are humbled by having so many investors believe in our vision.&rdquo;

Mohammed Jaffar, Deputy Chairman and CEO of Faith Capital, said, &ldquo;Faith Capital continues to focus its efforts on backing MENA founders in the GCC region by making its first investment in Bahrain. Dalooni has set its sights on expansion so soon after launching and we are thrilled to be a part of this journey.&rdquo;

Abdulaziz Al Loughani, Managing Partner at Faith Capital, added, &ldquo;Classifieds have done phenomenally well in this part of the world and we&rsquo;ve finally found an entrepreneur offering a new gamified spin on this evolving space.&rdquo;

Inagrab secures funding from Faith Capital

Crowd Analyzer, a Dubai-based Arabic-focused social media monitoring platform that was born in Egypt in 2013 has raised over $3.5 million in a Series round, Wamda reported yesterday. The round was led by Saudi-based Tech Invest Com with participation of Wamda Capital, Arzan VC, Faith Capital, and Daring Capital. It takes total investment raised by Crowd Analyzer to $5.09 million with its previous round of $1.1 million coming in last year.

Founded by Ahmed Saad and Baha Galal,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.crowdanalyzer.com/" target="_blank">Crowd Analyzer</a>&nbsp;uses machine learning, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing to analyze content and conversations on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and even publications) uses machis an Arabic-focused social media monitoring tool that analyzes content and conversations for sentiment and relevance, to help brands understand how they&rsquo;re doing online, and use this data to create social media campaigns and marketing strategy.

The startup monitors mention of a brand (its customer) in different Arabic dialects including Egyptian, Khaleeji (Gulf), Levantine and standard Arabic to help businesses understand which dialect is performing the best with up to 90% accuracy rate.

Crowd Analyzer, according to the report, plans to use the investment to accelerate its AI and machine learning capabilities and expand its presence in Saudi, Egypt and some other GCC markets.

Ahmed Saad, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Crowd Analyzer, speaking to Wamda, said, &ldquo;As the first Arabic-focused social media monitoring platform, Crowd Analyzer continues to offer indispensable intelligence to companies and brands in the region, helping them to know, understand and access their consumer base quicker and easier than ever before.&rdquo;

&ldquo;By the end of the Series A funding cycle, we now have three of the five investors involved working directly with us. Through this latest round of fundraising, they have recognized our growth and potential,&rdquo; he added.

Fadi Ghandour, Executive Chairman at Wamda, said,&nbsp;&ldquo;We are very excited to continue backing Crowd Analyzer, they have a proven model and have become a key player within the digital sentiment analysis space, with unmatched capabilities and comprehensive coverage of the Arabic digital and social media sphere.&rdquo;

Lucidya, a Jeddah-based similar startup had also raised ~$1.1 million in a Series A round earlier this year.

Dubai’s Crowd Analyzer raises over $3.5 million Series A for its Arabic-focused social media monitoring platform

Dubai-headquartered Crowd Analyzer has raised $1.1 million in pre Series A funding, Wamda&nbsp;reported today. The round was led by Wamda Capital and joined by Kuwait&rsquo;s Arzan VC and Faith Capital, and Saudi&rsquo;s Raed VC.

Founded in 2013 in Egypt by Ahmed Saad and Baha Galal,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.crowdanalyzer.com/" target="_blank">Crowd Analyzer</a>&nbsp;is an Arabic-focused social media monitoring tool that analyzes content and conversations for sentiment and relevance. The startup uses proprietary machine learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing to achieve this.

Crowd Analyzer uses groundbreaking technologies such as Proprietary Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing to get computers to be as linguistically proficient as humans.

It monitors all mentions of your brand in different Arabic dialects including Egyptian, Khaleeji (Gulf), Levantine and standard Arabic to help you understand which dialect is performing the best with up to 90% accuracy rate.

Apart from its product, Crowd Analyzer also offers different services including&nbsp;PR mapping, competitor benchmarking, custom tracking and ad hoc reporting, influencer marketing surveying, and brand health audit form its offices in Dubai and Cairo.

The startup has worked with some of the leading international and regional brands including with companies like Dubai Media Group, International Committee of the Red Cross, Expo 2020, Huawei, Souq.com, DHL and Uber in its portfolio.

Commenting on the ocassion, Ahmed Saad, the co-founder and CEO of Crowd Analzyer, said, &ldquo;For three years, Crowd Analyzer has delivered actionable intelligence and data enabling world-class companies in the region to harness the power of social media.&rdquo;

&ldquo;As the only Arabic-focused social media monitoring platform, we offer our clients invaluable data that incorporates regional dialects, relevance and of course sentiment analysis. This latest round of funding will enable us to continue our growth in Saudi Arabia and allow us to explore further opportunities in the regional market,&rdquo; he added.

Bahaa Galal, CTO and Co-founder of Crowd Analyzer, said, &ldquo;Our use of AI and Machine Learning enables us to better monitor social media and mine data, providing brands and organizations with the most up-to-date and relevant insights.&rdquo;

The Egyptian startup is also known for publishing annual state of social media reports for the region, and supporting different leading regional and international events including World Government Summit, Cannes Lions and Dubai Lynx by setting up command center to monitor real time conversations about these events on social media.

Dubai-based Crowd Analyzer raises $1.1 million for its Arabic-focused social media monitoring platform

California-based SaaS startup CaptainPanel has raised $1.2 million in seed funding from Kuwait&rsquo;s Faith Capital and 500 Startups (MENA), Faith Capital and 500 Startups announced in a joint statement today.

&nbsp;

Founded in 2017 by&nbsp;Abdullah Shalabi, a Kuwait national,&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190515073637/http://www.captainpanel.com/" target="_blank">CaptainPanel</a>&nbsp;is an online solution that comes with a booking software for operators of fishing charters, boat rentals, diving centers, and water sports activity organizers. The startup also owns and runs FishFishMe, an international marketplace for fishing charters and watersport activities.

A big number of water activity businesses still rely on pen and paper to manage their bookings which requires a lot of time and effort on the operations side. CaptainPanel helps them take all of this online through its booking software and different other services which also include revamping the websites of these businesses and working with them on their digital marketing.

&nbsp;

Abdullah Shalabi, the Co-Founder and CEO, of CaptainPanel, commenting on the occasion, said, &ldquo;CaptainPanel is a growth partner for water sports companies. We provide business with in-person support, guidance and a tailored-made software which engages customers and manages the complex transactions typical of this industry. Both our approach and our software is supportive, simple and growth-focused. We understand the needs of this industry and have built our business to help yours &ndash; regardless of size.&rdquo;

Abdulaziz Al Loughani, Managing Partner at Faith Capital, said, &ldquo;FishFishMe and CaptainPanel are quickly becoming indispensable software platforms for anyone operating a watersports business in the Western United States and Mexico. As the tourism and hospitality sector continues to adopt technical solutions to age-old problems, small business owners reliant on the vibrancy of this sector will no longer fear the loss of value and opportunity caused by a lack of innovation in this space.&rdquo;

Hasan Haider, a Partner with 500 Startups, added, &ldquo;We aim to invest in great founders, that are passionate and strive to achieve great results, and so we&rsquo;re happy to be investing in CaptainPanel and supporting Abdullah on his path to success. CaptainPanel has been shown to be greatly needed globally, not just in the MENA region and is helping boat captains and owners to more efficiently manage their businesses.&rdquo;

Mohammed Jaffar, Deputy Chairman and CEO of Faith Capital, commented, &ldquo;We are committed to back MENA founders as they endeavor to create lasting value in the technology space across the world and especially in the MENA region. We look forward to continuously providing support to our founders via our expansive team of professionals.&rdquo;

CaptainPanel, a SaaS for water activity companies, raises $1.2 million seed from Kuwait’s Faith Capital and 500 Startups

Fakespot, the platform for determining the trustworthiness and validity of online reviews, has raised $4 million in funding. This round included twelve investors,&nbsp;led by Bullpen Capital with participation from Faith Capital Holdings, Graph Ventures, Ty Shay and 500 Startups&nbsp;among others in the round bringing the company&rsquo;s total funding to $7 million.&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://faithcapital.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/highresshot.jpg?w=1024" />

Saoud Khalifah, co-founder and CEO of Fakespot, said, &ldquo;As more and more of our daily actions are done online, the importance of trust has grown exponentially and Fakespot intends to be the leader in building technology and products that tackle fake reviews, fake sellers and more.&rdquo;

The funding will be used to expand its product offerings to its rapidly growing user base that is eager to avoid the growing problem with eCommerce scams on the top online marketplaces.

Fakespot&rsquo;s mission is to bring trust and transparency to the Internet, starting with eCommerce. Utilizing a proprietary AI and Machine Learning platform that analyses many critical data points including reviews, third-party sellers, and reputation data.

By downloading Fakespot&rsquo;s Chrome Extension, consumers can easily detect unreliable third-party sellers and fake reviews in real-time. It is noteworthy to mention that Kuwait&rsquo;s Faith Capital Holdings and Philadelphia&rsquo;s SRI Capital participated in Fakespot&rsquo;s seed rounds, recognizing early on the company&rsquo;s potential to make big impact on the way people shop online.

Fakespot secures $4 million in Series A funding led by Bullpen Capital with participation from Faith Capital Holdings, Graph Ventures, Ty Shay, and 500 Startups.

New York City-based Fakespot has raised $1.3 million as seed funding with participation from Kuwait&rsquo;s Faith Capital, the VC firm announced yesterday.

Started in 2016 by Saoud Khalifah, a Kuwaiti founder,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fakespot.com/" target="_blank">Fakespot</a>&nbsp;has a developed a proprietary artificial intelligence platform that allows users to analyze and authenticate product reviews on Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and the Apple App Store.

So when users are not sure about review of a hotel that they&rsquo;re perhaps considering for their next trip or a perfume that they&rsquo;re buying from Amazon, they could use Fakestop for the authenticating the reviews. The startup offers these services to individuals for free through its website, Android and iOS apps, and Chrome extension. Fakespot also offer authentication solutions to businesses.

We gave it a try and its pretty simple. You just need to paste the link of the product, hotel or whatever it is from TripAdvisor, Amazon, Yelp or Apple App Store &ndash; and Fakestop&rsquo;s algo will analyze the reviews for this product and share its findings with you within seconds.

The reviews are rated using a letter-grading system, with A being the highest grade and F being the lowest. Even though there might be some indirect relationship between the quality of products and their Fakespot grades, it is important to note that these grades are for reviews and not for the products.

<img alt="" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.menabytes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Fakespot-Screenshot.jpg?resize=1000%2C487&amp;ssl=1" style="height:487px; width:1000px" />

The startups according to their website, uses different ways to evaluate the authenticity of the review, including English language pattern recognition, profile of the reviewer and correlation with other reviewer data. Their algorithm uses &lsquo;machine learning to constantly improve itself by looking at profile clusters, sentiment analysis and cluster correlation.&rsquo; Fakespot has also trained their AI &lsquo;to pick up on patterns&rsquo;. So basically, the more data that gets into their system, the better it gets at detecting the fake reviews.

&ldquo;Online reviews play a critical role in e-commerce by giving products and services a seal of approval from other consumers. Gaming the review systems of e-commerce platforms has become a prevalent practice for both known and unknown companies,&rdquo; commented Saoud Khalifah, the Founder, CEO, and CTO of Fakespot, &ldquo;It is not uncommon for online shoppers to be misled by what otherwise looks like a high-quality item on a reputable e-commerce site. Fakespot is dedicated to protecting consumers from online deception on an increasing number of international e-commerce and service review platforms.&rdquo;

Rob Gross, COO of Fakespot, also commented, saying, &ldquo;Fakespot&rsquo;s mission is to make the internet more trustworthy, starting with consumer reviews. Our platform produces authentic data that benefits both consumers and business by detecting true consumer sentiment, counterfeits and defective products.&rdquo;

Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, the Managing Partner of Faith Capital, speaking at the ocassion, said, &ldquo;As a Kuwaiti Venture Capital firm, it is important to us that we back not only technology companies in the MENA region, but MENA founders who have the opportunity and ability to create a product of value with immediate international relevance. We look forward to aiding Fakespot in their efforts to build an international service.&rdquo;

TripAdivsor spokesman last month, speaking to Daily Mail about Fakespot&rsquo;s claims of fake reviews said that they are based on entirely flawed techniques.&nbsp; &ldquo;The usefulness and accuracy of the content on TripAdvisor is what has made our site popular to hundreds of millions of consumers. It&rsquo;s why we fight fake reviews so aggressively. If Fakespot&rsquo;s methods were in any way reliable, we would be using them. We have tested their analysis, with reviews we know to be either genuine or fake, and the results show it to be completely unreliable and inaccurate.&rdquo;

But there&rsquo;s no denying the fact that fake reviews are a big issue. Late last year, a Vice journalist was able to setup a fake restaurant in London and with the help of fake reviews &ndash; he ended up being ranked number one in the city. The reviews came from his social circle so it may have been a bit difficult for Fakespot to &lsquo;spot&rsquo; them but even TripAdvisor failed at doing that.

If Fakespot is able to earn the trust of users and the businesses that use its product to a level that it becomes a part of their buying cycle, they could very well be the next big thing by a MENA founder.

Kuwaiti founder raises $1.3 million in New York City to help you spot fake reviews on TripAdvisor, Amazon, and Yelp

Kuwait-based Faith Capital has announced an investment of $8 million in JustClean, a Kuwaiti laundry startup it had acquired in 2017. All of the money is being injected by Faith Capital themselves without any external investors, a representative of the firm has told us.

The investment will be used for ongoing expansion of marketplace operations of JustClean across GCC in addition to expanding into B2B logistics and SaaS initiative, Faith Capital said in the statement.

Founded by a brother duo,&nbsp;Athbi Al-Enezi and&nbsp;Nouri Al-Enezi, in 2016,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justclean.com/" target="_blank">JustClean</a>&nbsp;(previously known as&nbsp;Masbagti) is on-demand mobile marketplace that connects laundries with people who need their services, offering free pick-up and delivery. Started from Kuwait, they&rsquo;re now available in Bahrain and UAE as well and have recently rolled out&nbsp;logistical support for marketplace vendors and a PoS and comprehensive laundry management software solution. The startup is also in process to roll out the full suite of these services in Qatar by the end of the year and launch the SaaS product in Saudi.

Athbi Al-Enezi, a Co-Founder of JustClean, commenting on the occasion, said, &ldquo;JustClean has differentiated itself from regional competitors by offering technological solutions to problems faced not just by consumers, but by operators of laundry businesses as well. The user experience is of paramount importance to everyone in this market, however, we&rsquo;ve seen most of our competitors completely neglect the B2B value chain. JustClean will cater to both B2B and B2C segments, and intends to ultimately be the solution provider of choice for cleaning business owners across the MENA region.&rdquo;

Mohammed Jaffar, the CEO of Faith Capital who is also the CEO of JustClean, said, &ldquo;As the first and only institutional investors in JustClean, Faith Capital is dedicated to succeeding in the GCC cleaning sector with the help of our expansive resources, including advisory team members with decades of combined experience in operating and scaling businesses in challenging competitive environments,&rdquo; says . &ldquo;Our past entrepreneurial experience in this region has left us well-equipped to scale JustClean regionally.&rdquo;

Nouri Al-Enezi, Co-Founder of JustClean, added, &ldquo;We have spent the last few months hiring additional resources for JustClean in a wide variety of positions from across the MENA region to ensure that we are well-positioned for success. It is with great pride that we say that JustClean is now home to one of the most sophisticated startup teams in the MENA ecosystem.&rdquo;

Kuwait’s Faith Capital announces $8 million investment in its on-demand laundry startup JustClean for its expansion

GCC&nbsp;based laundry technology company&nbsp;<a href="https://justclean.com/" target="_blank">JustClean</a>, secured&nbsp;$8 million&nbsp;in Series B round of financing from Faith Capital Holding, a venture capital firm that focuses on e-commerce businesses in the MENA region. With this investment, JustClean aims to propel the company&rsquo;s growth in its current markets and venture into other areas of the cleaning sector.&nbsp;

JustClean is a GCC laundry technology company that specializes in consumer and enterprise laundry technology solutions. The startup is working to digitize the region&rsquo;s $3 billion laundry industry and has raised just over $20 million&nbsp;since its inception in 2017. The new funds will allow JustClean to expand its current marketplace operations, SaaS services, as well as logistics support.

&ldquo;JustClean has become the preferred aggregator for laundry services across the region, through the combined efforts made by hundreds of our valued laundry partners and our 200 plus team members alike. Our technological solutions have proven to be effective and as such, we have built our brand on being the go-to solution provider of choice for cleaning business owners across the MENA region,&rdquo; says Athbi Al Enezi,&nbsp;Co-Founder and Managing Partner of JustClean. &ldquo;We are shaping a new, sustainable laundry ecosystem that brings together the most trusted laundry service providers in the region into a marketplace application that not only provides end-users with convenience but also supports businesses as they strive to compete in the Digital Economy.&rdquo;

Nouri Al Enezi, a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of JustClean, concluded by adding, &ldquo;During the last six months of COVID-19, we have reaffirmed our model to be a versatile and fluid one that is adaptable to market conditions and through this time we have created new revenue streams that are diversified and sustainable. Our steadfast focus on delivering a stress-free, user-friendly, and highly efficient service has witnessed JustClean become an employer of choice with a corporate culture built on innovation and community investment.&rdquo;

JustClean Raises $8 million in Series B Round

JustClean, a technology company started by Kuwaiti brothers Athbi and Nouri Al Enezi, is trying to tap the $3 billion (Dh11bn) laundry industry across Gulf countries&nbsp;to boost its growth. Its&nbsp;mobile app allows people to&nbsp;select the laundry outlet in the area and place the order with dates and time for pick up and delivery.

&quot;We started the company by identifying a crucial problem in the market. We sought out to build a platform that would provide convenience to the users,&quot; said Athbi Al Enezi, speaking to&nbsp;The National.

Mr Al Enezi was born and raised in Kuwait until his late teens when he moved to the UK. Upon completion of his education, he embarked upon a career in the hospitality industry which offered him significant experience of consumer behavior.

Upon his return to Kuwait, while still in the banking sector, Mr Al Enezi along with his brother Nouri Al Enezi, inspired by the fast-moving e-commerce industry in the region, decided to set up the first laundry marketplace application in 2016.

Together, they launched Masbagti in April 2016 and in the following year, the business partnered with Kuwait based venture capital fund Faith Capital and&nbsp;re-branded to&nbsp;JustClean.

The JustClean team has grown to&nbsp;130 people with&nbsp;plans for further expansion.

Its app is available&nbsp;in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia. By the end of 2019, it plans to roll out its service in Jeddah and Riyadh.

JustClean secured investment to the tune of $12.9m from Faith Capital Holding, a&nbsp;Kuwait-based venture capital fund, allowing it to expand its business further. Faith Capital invested $1.3m in February 2017, $3.6m in March 2018 and $8m in February 2019.

In the UAE, the company has signed up more than 100 laundry businesses since introducing its app in the emirates in October 2018 and is looking to sign up at least 10 more laundries each month for the rest of the year and into 2020. It aims to expand its operations in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah, not only increasing their user base but their territorial presence as well.

&ldquo;We have thousands of customers using our app. This time last year, we were present only in Kuwait but now we have managed to expand and have a physical office in every city we operate.&rdquo;

The company expects more investments as it aims to expand beyond the GCC. Mr Enezi said they are studying three&nbsp;to four&nbsp;markets to start their service but did not provide further details.

&ldquo;The laundry business in the GCC region is currently worth roughly $3bn, with an annual growth of 9 per cent, and it will develop substantially in the next five years. We feel the entire industry will eventually end up online.&rdquo;

The company is three businesses in one, namely a marketplace application, a logistics operation as well as a SaaS (software as a service) business.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;re upgrading what is basically a large and underdeveloped sector through the integration of technology into the daily lives of consumers.&rdquo;

JustClean has customers coming from different socio-economic backgrounds, locals as well as expatriates.

Mr Enezi feels that atmosphere is right for the growth of start ups in the GCC.

&ldquo;Having started as a Kuwaiti company and expanded to other GCC markets, we have found the atmosphere to be more welcoming as time goes on. It is an open market and customers are not complicated.&rdquo;

Various markets in the GCC have begun to adopt more business-friendly rules&nbsp;and regulations, he said, adding, &ldquo;We anticipate additional positive developments in the very near future.&rdquo;

Earlier this year, Abu Dhabi has committed Dh535 million for a new fund to invest in start-ups as part of the government&#39;s Ghadan 21 programme to diversify the economy and attract investors. The emirate also started a dedicated tech hub, dubbed Hub 71, that will offer cost of living subsidies to start ups to help them grow.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange is also planning to set up a venture capital market to attract and support the country&rsquo;s growing start ups.

&ldquo;Everyone is looking at exiting in GCC,&quot; says Mr Enezi. &quot;However, we are looking at bigger picture and hoping to reach IPO level in future.&rdquo;

<h2>What is the vision of the company in the next five years?</h2>

We aim to upgrade our current sector through technology and aspire for JustClean to be listed on an international stock exchange.

<h2>What new skills Mr Athbi learnt in the process of launching the company?</h2>

Aside from learning technical business methods and ideologies, on a personal level I have learned to be more resilient.

<h2>What already successful start up do you wish you have started?&nbsp;</h2>

My brother and I entered the laundry industry because we identified a crucial problem affecting both laundry owners and customers alike, and we are continuously tackling this problem. We are inspired by the pioneers before us and after Allah&rsquo;s blessings hope to carve our own path for success.

Generation start-up: JustClean is taking the chore out of laundry

Kuwait-based&nbsp;<a href="http://www.snapbook.com/" target="_blank">Snapbook</a>&nbsp;has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Faith Capital, the Kuwaiti VC announced today.

Founded by Abdullah Boodai in 2016, Snapbook is an online photo publishing service that allows users to buy photo books, and gifts, t-shirts, mugs, mobile phone cases, customized with their pictures. Anyone can create their designs by uploading the pictures through Snapbook&rsquo;s website or mobile apps to buy the customized items.

The startup that claims to be MENA&rsquo;s leading and only full-fledged internet photo publishing service currently ships to over 40 countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia.

<img alt="" src="https://i0.wp.com/www.menabytes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Snapbook-Seed-A.jpg?resize=1000%2C556&amp;ssl=1" style="height:556px; width:1000px" />

Abdullah Boodai, the Founder and CEO of Snapbook, speaking about the investment, said, &ldquo;Snapbook intends to attain pre-eminence in the field of photo printing, and we&rsquo;ll work alongside Faith Capital to achieve a lasting global presence as a company with technology driving its core value proposition and operating efficiencies.&rdquo;

&ldquo;As the first institutional investor in Snapbook, we have long believed that the regional e-commerce sector is ripe for new entrants and product offerings, and we are proud to partner with Kuwaiti founders to pursue this unique market opportunity,&rdquo; noted Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, the Managing Partner of Faith Capital. &ldquo;We look forward to further developing our professional relationship in the years to come.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Faith Capital partners with founders who truly understand the value of technology in creating sustainable operations. Snapbook&rsquo;s investment in building such technologies demonstrates their long- term commitment to mastering their platform&rsquo;s scalability,&rdquo; said Abdulaziz Hayat, an Associate at Faith Capital. &ldquo;Together, we&rsquo;ll expand the reach of MENA&rsquo;s first truly scalable custom photo printing startup.&rdquo;

Many similar services in the United States and other parts of the world have also managed to attract decent amount of venture money, suggesting, that there&rsquo;s a big user base for these services.

Kuwait’s Snapbook raises $1.5 million in seed funding from Faith Capital for its online photo printing service

Kuwait-based venture capital firm Faith Capital announced its participation in the secondary share offering in Dubai-based online gifting platform YouGotaGift.

&nbsp;

Launched in 2012, YouGotaGift offers a range of online card gifts from more than 400 brands through email, SMS and its app. It operates across three major business verticals including consumer gifting and employee and customer rewards. The investment will enable the startup to expand across the GCC.

&nbsp;

&ldquo;&#39;YouGotaGift is disrupting the gift card industry in the Middle East. As an end-to-end digital business, it is leading the cultural shift to digital gifting for consumers and transforming the procurement &amp; distribution of bulk rewards for businesses,&rdquo; said Husain Makiya, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at YouGotaGift. &ldquo;It is operating in an industry predicted to grow to $700bn globally by 2024&rdquo;.

&nbsp;

YouGotaGift enables the integration of brand loyalty programmes, serving as a one-stop-shop, for brands like Noon, Carrefour, Lulu, Careem and ITunes to corporate clients including banks, telecommunications, government and private enterprises in the GCC and beyond.

&nbsp;

&ldquo;We at Faith Capital have kept an eye on technology companies looking to reinvent and digitise large fragmented offline markets. With so many players in the e-card space, YouGotaGift very clearly sets itself apart from the competition with its distinct module and rapid growth,&rdquo; said Abdulaziz Al Loughani managing partner atFaith Capital. &ldquo;We are proud to partner with innovative entrepreneurs like Husain Makiya, and naturally, Faith Capital looks forward to adding significant value as the company expands into additional GCC markets and scales up the operation.&rdquo;

Faith Capital invests in YouGotAGift’s share offering

<ul>
	<li>Saudi Arabia-based e-grocery platform Nana has received an undisclosed amount of investment from Kuwait-based VC firm Faith Capital.</li>
	<li>
	Founded in 2015 by Ahmad Alsamani, Sami Alhelwah and Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Nana has managed to triple its turnover during the past year, partnering with several hypermarkets such as Carrefour, Panda, Spar, Farm Superstores and Manuel, among others, and operates in 14 cities across Saudi Arabia.
	</li>
	<li>
	In March 2020, Nana raised an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wamda.com/2020/03/wamda-invests-online-grocery-platform-nanas-18-million-series-b-round">$18 million Series B investment round</a>&nbsp;led by key investors in the region including Wamda, Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), Impact46 and Watar Partners.
	</li>
</ul>

Press release:

Faith Capital announced on August 1st its participation in Saudi Arabia-based Nana&rsquo;s Convertible Round. Nana is an online grocery marketplace platform that powers hypermarkets and helps them showcase their inventory to millions of users. Nana&rsquo;s technology allows buyers to enjoy a seamless remote experience from the comfort of their homes, where a shopper prepares the order and has it delivered to the user&rsquo;s registered address. The technology allows users to get a constant overview of the progress as well as track the delivery.&nbsp;

Founded by Ahmad Alsamani, Sami Alhelwah and Abdulmajeed Alsukhan in 2015, Nana has managed to triple its turnover during the past year, and partnerships with Carrefour, Panda, Spar, Farm Superstores, Manuel, among others have helped Nana offer the widest possible range of consumer packaged goods (CPG) to users all over Saudi Arabia. The platform currently serves 14 cities across Saudi Arabia.

Nana raises investment from Faith Capital

<ul>
	<li>Saudi Arabia-based dark store Nana has raised $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV, bringing the total funding to $80 million to date.</li>
	<li>The round witnessed participation from Quencia Capital, Faith Capital, Jahez, Sunbulah Group, and other strategic investors alongside participation from previous investors including STV, MEVP and Impact46.</li>
	<li>Founded in 2015 by Ahmad Alsamani, Sami Alhelwah, Nana is an e-grocery store with a feature of quick delivery that ensures all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers&rsquo; doorsteps within 15 mins.</li>
	<li>Nana will mobilise the investment to solidify its presence regionally with a target of 150+ dark stores by 2022, most are in Saudi to cover all the main cities within the Kingdom.</li>
	<li>Nana is a Wamda portfolio company.</li>
</ul>

Press release:

Riyadh-based Nana, which fulfils online grocery orders from its dark stores and delivers within 15 minutes, has raised a total of $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV &ndash; which brings the total funding to $80 million to date.

The announcement was made as part of the Leap event in Riyadh. This round has been dedicated towards the expansion of Nana&#39;s dark store coverage throughout the Kingdom and the region with an aim to elevate the e-grocery industry and empower households to conveniently fulfil their grocery needs online thus accelerating the transformational goal from an offline to a purely online grocery shopping experience.

The company successfully attracted several new investors including FIM Partners - a leading emerging and frontier market focused institutional investment manager and sponsor of the region&rsquo;s first technology-focused SPAC (Nasdaq: FICV), Quencia Capital, Faith Capital, Jahez &ndash; the food delivery company which recently went public on Nomu Saudi Stock Exchange, Sunbulah Group, and other strategic investors alongside participation from previous investors including STV, MEVP and Impact46.

Nana had launched on a mission to provide households with a convenient solution to fulfil their grocery needs online. Through a network of micro fulfilment centres or dark stores fully stocked with up to 2,000 SKUs, NanaExpress ensures that all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers&rsquo; doorsteps within 15 mins.

This groundbreaking business model has successfully redefined the meaning of the traditional grocery store and supported the founders&rsquo; vision of elevating the e-grocery industry both locally and regionally thus contributing to its rapid growth within Online Groceries to claim a market leader position with an 18% market share.

While NanaHyper&rsquo;s wide selection of 40,000 SKUs provides households with the perfect solution to shop for their weekly and monthly groceries with the utmost convenience and superior quality of products and prices. Today, 90% of Riyadh&rsquo;s daily grocery needs are covered through NanaExpress with plans to cover 100% of Riyadh in addition to Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s main cities throughout the year.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sami Alhelwah, Nana&rsquo;s Co-Founder &amp; Chief Executive Officer said: &ldquo;We exist to empower every household with a convenient solution that seeks to fulfil their daily, weekly, or monthly grocery needs and have been on this mission ever since we launched Nana back in 2016. Since then, we have sought every opportunity to expand our coverage, optimise our operations and enhance our user experience in the pursuit of this goal and that is why we&rsquo;re excited to work closely with our investors who share this vision and have an unwavering commitment to elevating the online grocery shopping experience both locally and regionally.&rdquo; Sami also added, &ldquo;Our expansion has resulted in rapid double-digit growth week over week, and the current fundraise will sustain this growth for a considerable time.&rdquo;

With a drive and sights on elevating the e-grocery industry in the Kingdom and the region, Nana will mobilise the investment round proceeds to solidify and establish its operations and presence regionally with a target of 150+ dark stores by 2022, most are in Saudi to cover all the main cities within the Kingdom.

Saudi dark store Nana raises $50 million

Saudi Arabia-based dark store Nana has raised $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV, bringing the total funding to $80 million to date.
The round witnessed participation from Quencia Capital, Faith Capital, Jahez, Sunbulah Group, and other strategic investors alongside participation from previous investors including STV, MEVP and Impact46.
Founded in 2015 by Ahmad Alsamani, Sami Alhelwah, Nana is an e-grocery store with a feature of quick delivery that ensures all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers’ doorsteps within 15 mins.
Nana will mobilise the investment to solidify its presence regionally with a target of 150+ dark stores by 2022, most are in Saudi to cover all the main cities within the Kingdom.
Nana is a Wamda portfolio company.
Press release:

Riyadh-based Nana, which fulfils online grocery orders from its dark stores and delivers within 15 minutes, has raised a total of $50 million in a round led by FIM Partners and STV – which brings the total funding to $80 million to date.

The announcement was made as part of the Leap event in Riyadh. This round has been dedicated towards the expansion of Nana's dark store coverage throughout the Kingdom and the region with an aim to elevate the e-grocery industry and empower households to conveniently fulfil their grocery needs online thus accelerating the transformational goal from an offline to a purely online grocery shopping experience.

The company successfully attracted several new investors including FIM Partners - a leading emerging and frontier market focused institutional investment manager and sponsor of the region’s first technology-focused SPAC (Nasdaq: FICV), Quencia Capital, Faith Capital, Jahez – the food delivery company which recently went public on Nomu Saudi Stock Exchange, Sunbulah Group, and other strategic investors alongside participation from previous investors including STV, MEVP and Impact46.

Nana had launched on a mission to provide households with a convenient solution to fulfil their grocery needs online. Through a network of micro fulfilment centres or dark stores fully stocked with up to 2,000 SKUs, NanaExpress ensures that all daily grocery needs are delivered straight to customers’ doorsteps within 15 mins.

This groundbreaking business model has successfully redefined the meaning of the traditional grocery store and supported the founders’ vision of elevating the e-grocery industry both locally and regionally thus contributing to its rapid growth within Online Groceries to claim a market leader position with an 18% market share.

While NanaHyper’s wide selection of 40,000 SKUs provides households with the perfect solution to shop for their weekly and monthly groceries with the utmost convenience and superior quality of products and prices. Today, 90% of Riyadh’s daily grocery needs are covered through NanaExpress with plans to cover 100% of Riyadh in addition to Saudi Arabia’s main cities throughout the year.   

Sami Alhelwah, Nana’s Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer said: “We exist to empower every household with a convenient solution that seeks to fulfil their daily, weekly, or monthly grocery needs and have been on this mission ever since we launched Nana back in 2016. Since then, we have sought every opportunity to expand our coverage, optimise our operations and enhance our user experience in the pursuit of this goal and that is why we’re excited to work closely with our investors who share this vision and have an unwavering commitment to elevating the online grocery shopping experience both locally and regionally.” Sami also added, “Our expansion has resulted in rapid double-digit growth week over week, and the current fundraise will sustain this growth for a considerable time.”

With a drive and sights on elevating the e-grocery industry in the Kingdom and the region, Nana will mobilise the investment round proceeds to solidify and establish its operations and presence regionally with a target of 150+ dark stores by 2022, most are in Saudi to cover all the main cities within the Kingdom.

Faith Capital announced their&nbsp;recent participation in&nbsp;the seed round&nbsp;of the Bahraini start-up Inagrab. Inagrab&rsquo;s core product Dalooni, helps businesses by connecting them to a sales force that promotes products for a commission. Faith Capital along with Bahrain Development Bank, 500 startups and Fla6labs will be an integral factor in the scaling and growth of Inagrab.

Since its inception in 2017, Inagrab has been a platform that helps retail businesses scale their operations with the help of A.I and data. Dalooni, a 2-sided product, allows business to create an account and post opportunities for &ldquo;sellers&rdquo; (independent individuals) to sell to their network with a commission on the sale. &nbsp;Businesses in turn are able to leverage word-of-mouth marketing and monetize offline channels. With this, local startups and international businesses are able to scale faster. Dalooni is a fresh take on the age-old classifieds business model. Through gamification they are able to foster healthy competition between sellers; which allows businesses to define their customer acquisition costs.

In addition to benefiting businesses and individuals, communities can take advantage of the new and exciting opportunities created through the platform. As their slogan highlights, everybody wins with Dalooni.

<img alt="" src="https://faithcapital.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/img_6727-e1555582221531.jpg?w=760" />

&ldquo;We embarked on a journey to bridge a very obvious gap and offer a solution that will both be beneficial for the Business owner and the individual (specifically the many in need of another source of income). That was proven by our quick growth since inception of Dalooni, and we believe it&rsquo;s time to grow outside the current borders into neighboring countries,&rdquo; says Hussain Haji, the Founder and CEO of Inagrab. &ldquo;We are honored to be Faith Capital&rsquo;s first investment in Bahrain and we are humbled by having so many investors believe in our vision.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Faith Capital continues to focus its efforts on backing MENA founders in the GCC region by making its first investment in Bahrain,&rdquo; states Mohammed Jaffar, Deputy Chairman and CEO of Faith Capital. He adds, &ldquo;Dalooni has set its sights on expansion so soon after launching and we are thrilled to be a part of this journey.&rdquo;

&ldquo;Classifieds have done phenomenally well in this part of the world and we&rsquo;ve finally found an entrepreneur offering a new gamified spin on this evolving space,&rdquo; says Abdulaziz Al Loughani Managing Partner at Faith Capital.

FAITH CAPITAL INVESTS IN DALOONI SEED ROUND

The Middle East&rsquo;s leading service marketplace&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justlife.com/" target="_blank">Justlife</a>&nbsp;(previously Justmop) connects professional and top-rated service providers with people requiring home services such as cleaning, basic healthcare, beauty &amp; wellness, maintenance and others in the MENA region. Since inception in 2015, Justlife significantly expanded the breadth of its home services offerings in the pursuit of becoming a super app for the region.

When the co-founders Kerem Kuyucu and Ali Cagatay Ozcan started Justlife, their idea was to initially dominate the UAE market in the home cleaning category by connecting verified personnel with consumers in need of cleaning services. As the business scaled rapidly in the cleaning vertical and Justlife entered more homes, they quickly realized that customers had a growing appetite for other home services in UAE and beyond. This pushed Kerem and Cagatay to expand across adjacent verticals and nearby geographies.

The agile approach that Kerem and Cagatay had been following also paved the way for exploring other opportunities following the Covid-19 outbreak &mdash; during the early days of the pandemic, Justlife immediately launched disinfection services for home &amp; office spaces. They also recognized a sharp increase in demand for basic healthcare / testing services at home, and launched the healthcare at home vertical, starting with at-home PCR tests. Having become the first online platform to provide such services at scale, Justlife successfully weathered the downturn caused by the pandemic by diversifying its revenue stream and has been able to keep its team intact during a relatively tough period.

Given the nature of its consumer dependent service model, Justlife have undoubtedly been affected negatively by the pandemic. Navigating the situation in hand and the unfolding of the Covid-19 outbreak, Cagatay and Kerem emphasized their strategy of building trust with their stakeholders and strengthening the ties they had with their employees and service professionals.

&ldquo;There were times when our sales even dropped by 50%, even after the government declared home cleaning as one of the essential services but we proudly say that our loyal customers never gave up on us! I&rsquo;d just like to say that, even if the times are difficult, you have to focus on the right goals, and eventually you will get through all the obstacles that come your way,&quot;&nbsp;said Kerem as he explained their way of thinking with Cagatay.

Justlife Reaches One Million Users

MENA-based edtech platform&nbsp;<a href="https://www.get-playbook.com/" target="_blank">Playbook</a>&nbsp;has closed a pre-seed funding round of US$700,000 led by US-based venture capital firm 500 Global, Saudi Arabia-based sovereign wealth fund Sanabil Investments, Kuwait-based venture capital firm Faith Capital, Saudi-based angel investor network Women Spark, and other investors.

&nbsp;

Conceptualized by three women- Wafa AlObaidat, Ismahan Al Saad, and Shreya Rammohan- Playbook is an annual subscription-based edutainment platform that offers educational masterclasses for women. &quot;These masterclasses were curated with the intention to redefine career progression for women,&quot; explains co-founder and CEO AlObaidat. &quot;Users can set up custom profiles, identify their skills and career goals, engage with a multitude of classes on diverse categories of interest- especially emerging professions, network with a community to crowdsource solutions, and immerse themselves in a gamified experience with learning goals and progress trackers.&quot;

&nbsp;

The platform, which offers courses in both English and Arabic, generates revenue by engaging with individuals for annual memberships as well as partnerships with enterprises that include memberships for their female executives. &quot;As part of a phased approach, we are focused on the MENA region primarily,&quot; AlObaidat adds. The yet-to-launch platform also hopes to create a diverse online community of women called The Campus, whose members will be able to virtually network via artificial intelligence (AI) powered tools, and gain access to on-demand mentorship, live events, and job boards. &quot;Our audience ranges from students exploring the career paths available to them, career transitioners identifying the right networks that helps them align with their goals, female entrepreneurs seeking a community of other founders that are navigating or have navigated similar challenges, as well as career professionals seeking to level up the corporate ladder into leadership roles meritoriously,&quot; AlObaidat explains.

&nbsp;

As of 2021, the global edtech industry has been valued at US$106.04 billion, and it is expected to grow at a stellar compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.9% till 2028. But this promising statistic isn&#39;t all that prompted AlObaidat and her co-founders to create Playbook. &quot;This is an exciting time for the region with millions of women entering the workforce in the MENA region,&quot; says AlObaidat. &quot;The region is seeing several job opportunities and leadership verticals opening up. Our experience indicated to us that there was a need for an authentic and value-driven content platform, like Playbook, for women to grow professionally and personally.&quot;

At the same time, with the discourse surrounding gender equality and women empowerment gaining more prominence among MENA businesses, AlObaidat says now is the perfect time to launch Playbook. &quot;Governments in the MENA region have also been taking a proactive policy driven stance to strengthen economic growth and quality of life through gender balance mandates,&quot; she adds. &quot;All this indicates that the region is now ready to fast-track development in this direction through more well-defined policy-setting, career opportunities and training needs analysis.&quot; AlObaidat also believes that a women-oriented edtech platform like Playbook can lead to some much-needed shifts in societal perceptions as well. &quot;It&#39;s important that we all subscribe to the fact that women can get along, support each other, want the best for each other and can be champions and allies to work with.,&quot; she says. &quot;It&#39;s important to shift the narrative that is usually pushed about us not being allies. We must believe and welcome women leaders in positions of power and get behind them.&quot;

&nbsp;

Finding investors who also believed in this vision was the most significant aspect of the fundraising process, says the CEO. Commenting on her firm&#39;s decision to fund Playbook, 500 Global MENA Partner Amal Dokhan says, &quot;Playbook enters the market at the right time to present a solution to the public and private sector, as policymakers appear to increasingly institute SDG goals and more job opportunities open up for women.&quot; Meanwhile, Deemah AlYahya, founder of Women Spark, spoke of how Playbook&#39;s vision for the MENA region aligned with those of her firm. &quot;Playbook helps us further our mission to invest in accelerating the career growth cycle of the female talent pool, and build more prosperous economies,&quot; AlYahya adds.

Given the fresh infusion of capital in Playbook, AlObaidat says there is much to look forward to in 2022. &quot;We aim to close our seed round, record more than 20 masterclasses this year, launch our community platform and our AI-integrated networking tools in the community,&quot; she says. &quot;The future with Playbook is looking great, and it&#39;s filled with opportunities for everyone to come together and create measurable and significant changes in the dynamics of the corporate world and entrepreneurship.&quot;

We Got Funded: MENA-Based Edtech Platform Playbook Raises US$700,000 In A Pre-Seed Funding Round

Kaso, a B2B platform digitising the ordering process between restaurants and food suppliers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has announced major growth over the past six months as it rebrands.

Formerly known as Elkaso, the company &ndash; fuelled by an initial pre-seed funding round in 2021 &ndash; has grown 10-fold, servicing over 3,500 restaurant and supplier partners in the two countries, just eight months since Kaso&rsquo;s launch last June.

The start-up also announced the appointment of Frank Biedka, former CTO of European e-commerce platform, Zalando, to lead Kaso&rsquo;s tech.

Kaso&rsquo;s leadership team expansion follows funding by the Silicon Valley-based accelerator, Y Combinator.

<img alt="&lt;img decoding=&quot;async&quot; width=&quot;1024&quot; height=&quot;704&quot; src=&quot;https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-1024x704.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; class=&quot;wp-image-695154&quot; srcset=&quot;https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-1000x688.jpg 1000w, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-1024x704.jpg 1024w, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-768x528.jpg 768w, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/oFHu4KUU-Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-1200x880.jpg 1200w, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-400x275.jpg 400w, https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka.jpg 1280w&quot; sizes=&quot;(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px&quot; /&gt;" src="https://www.arabianbusiness.com/cloud/2022/02/24/Kaso-CTO-Frank-Biedka-1024x704.jpg" style="height:704px; width:1024px" />

The start-up also announced the appointment of Frank Biedka, former CTO of European e-commerce platform, Zalando, to lead Kaso&rsquo;s tech.

With an acceptance rate of less than 1.5 percent, the globally renowned start-up accelerator is responsible for the launch of companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Coinbase, Stripe, and Reddit.

&ldquo;Biedka&rsquo;s extensive experience in driving innovation through technology aligns perfectly with Kaso&rsquo;s mission to revolutionise, digitise and simplify the food supply procurement process. I am excited to welcome a tech leader in the industry to continue taking Kaso to our path to reach $300m in gross merchandise value by end of this year,&rdquo; said Manar Alkassar, co-founder of Kaso.

Ahmed Soliman, co-founder of Kaso and former VP of Delivery Hero logistics, added: &ldquo;Kaso&rsquo;s acceptance and hypergrowth are testaments to the region&rsquo;s need for a digitised solution to streamline the food supply procurement.

&ldquo;We are bridging an evident gap in the thriving $50 billion food supply Gulf market, with our users already reducing supply costs by 15 percent and reducing order errors by 80 percent.&rdquo;

Kaso has also revealed an extensive rebrand of the company, including the launch of a new website and logo.

Kaso is available for download on Apple&rsquo;s App Store and Google Play.

Kaso sees rapid growth as it targets $300m business from UAE, Saudi food sector

Faith Capital announced today its participation in Lyve&rsquo;s Series B funding round of $35 million. Founded in 2016 by Hassan Hallas and Dr. Walid Moneimne, Lyve is a GCC based tech-enabled last-mile logistics digitization platform. In addition to Faith Capital, this round included multiple blue-chip investors such as Savola and Olayan.&nbsp;

<img alt="" src="https://faithcapital.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/lyve-wall-1-scaled-1.jpg?w=1024" />

In 2020, Lyve was rebranded from One Click, as it further positions itself as a leading digital logistics group with agile tech solutions and a clear brand identity. The company empowers its partners with the latest and most advanced platforms enabling them to efficiently cater to the modern customer&rsquo;s needs. Together with its ever-expanding portfolio of digital transformation and patented technologies, Lyve&rsquo;s plug and play solutions empower businesses across multiple verticals to seamlessly manage logistic operations, optimize fleet schedule and tracking, enable brand presence and enhance more customer reach-out channels. All this with an advanced and powerful analytics engine at your fingertips. Leading brands from the e-commerce, pharmaceutical, telecom, grocery and F&amp;B industries are amongst Lyve&rsquo;s numerous clients globally. With its main offices in the UAE, Lyve also operates from multiple countries around the world.

Faith Capital Participates in Lyve’s Series B Funding Round

VUZ, the leading immersive social app, that allows users to stream and experience a new level of immersive realism in XR and Metaverse digital experiences, raises&nbsp;$20 million&nbsp;in series B funding&nbsp;led by international investors including Caruso Ventures, Vision Ventures VC Fund, and strategic investors such as e&amp; capital, investment pillar of e&amp; (formerly known as Etisalat Group), DFDF (Dubai Future District Fund), SRMG, and WIN (Webit Investment Network).

<img alt="Khaled Zaatarah CEO of VUZ " src="https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/YzTf1JLAoHFa1VrIDIteRQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTcwNTtoPTQ3MTtjZj13ZWJw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/prnewswire.com/25f5fa3a19dfc19c6cfa045ff00652dd" />

Khaled Zaatarah CEO of VUZ

 
Investors in the round included three strategic funds from&nbsp;Europe&nbsp;including WIN, Elbert Capital, and Yasta Partners. Additional Investors that joined the round are Faith Capital, Panthera Capital, and seven of the existing previous investors followed on. With this round, VUZ is now backed by a mix of investors based in the US and EMEA that will play a major role in supporting VUZ in its international expansion.

VUZ, which was known previously as 360VUZ, bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds to offer the biggest premium immersive content library in the world with more than 20,000 hours of immersive content covering entertainment, creators, and sports segments, and XR, VR, and AR experiences from virtually anywhere in the world. VUZ&#39;s vision is bringing people together and connecting the world by providing authentic immersive experiences while removing the constraints of (TTA) Travel, Time, and Access to billions of people around the world.

Khaled Zaatarah, the founder of VUZ, commented: &quot;Our mission is to build a hyperconnected product to teleport, empower, and entertain millions of users globally. We are very thankful to have some of the strongest international investors as part of our journey to build a global social immersive platform while leading the new technology revolution, accelerating the future of media and trends such as the Metaverse, and XR (AR and VR) while building strong sustainable growth.&quot;

The funds will be used to fuel VUZ&#39;s expansion plans in growing its core, accelerate the growth of 10% growth month over month in its recurring subscription revenue, investing in top content, hiring additional key senior hires, new social features, launching Web3 products, NFT projects to own and trade virtual assets derived from the metaverse and scaling with asset-light operations into 8 additional new international markets, following its partnership and integration with 45 Telecom Operators globally. Telecoms are seeing that immersive media is one of the strongest use cases for 5G and it&#39;s the future of video streaming. Funds will also support VUZ to further scale its&nbsp;Los Angeles&nbsp;office and scale with creators and content in the&nbsp;USA,&nbsp;Asia, and&nbsp;Europe.

&quot;Our plans for the future are 10X stronger than what we have been building for the past 6 years. We have built the base and now we are ready for sustainable scalability and growth at a scale-up stage. Special thanks to everyone that believed in us and to every member of our team.&quot; Zaatarah adds.

The extended reality immersive platform VUZ reached over 1 Billion Screen Views and is aiming to reach 3 Billion Screen Views in 2023. VUZ provides users and top creators around the world with the latest immersive technologies, different authentic views, and top immersive experiences. Creators&#39; immersive content collaborations have been one of the core drivers of VUZ where it has top creators with a total reach of over 100 Million globally.

VUZ, an Endeavor global network company built a lean and scalable business model providing an important revenue mix, driving value as well as growth and has strong plans to scale its platform. Some of the mega plans for VUZ is building on its current IOS and Android social mobile applications are new features such as the video immersive live chatting, social in-app gifting, social commerce for creators, creators monetization and gamification plans, XR virtual technology, launching it&#39;s SDK, scaling on the full ecosystem with META/Oculus and Qualcomm, Immersive Avatars, as well as launching its Web Platform that is expected to reach 2Bn Screen Views per year, and its Smart TV platform.

Dan Caruso, Managing Director of Caruso Ventures, an investor, a 3x decacorn entrepreneur, and an avid supporter of entrepreneurship commented: &quot;We are very thrilled for leading the Series B for VUZ, VUZ is uniquely positioned to continue building a global platform and to partner with top telecom operators globally.&nbsp; We will use our deep scale-up experience to support VUZ achieve its global vision.&quot;

Kushal Shah, Head of Venture Capital, e&amp; capital, said: &quot;We are excited about investing in a tech company like VUZ that supports the creation of virtual content as well as enables futuristic immersive experiences. This is in line with our commitment to collaborate with visionary tech businesses that we believe will contribute to building a better and brighter digital future. We will continue to invest into the company&#39;s success, partnering with them to help them achieve growth and enable meaningful progress that moves this digital world forward.&quot;

VUZ won as well this year as a Finalist in the Webit Founders Games winning over 3,000 scale-up companies globally out of 140+ countries and being selected from a reputable jury such as&nbsp;Tim Draper. The Webit Investment Network will support VUZ in scaling globally through its vast network of partners and investors.

The team and culture have been one of the core drivers to the success of VUZ where more than 90% of the employees are on an ESOP shares equity plan, as a global success story needs a team of owners driving on one goal and a very strong culture.

In addition to the new investors, 360VUZ is backed by investors such as Knollwood Investment Advisory, AlTouq Group, Impact46, Shorooq Partners, KBW Ventures, Media Visions, Hala Ventures, 500Startups, DAI, Al Falaj,&nbsp;Magnus Olsson,&nbsp;Samih Toukan,&nbsp;Jonathan Labin, DTEC Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures,&nbsp;Al Rashid&nbsp;family and other strategic angel investors.

Stay updated with us on Instagram:&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/360VUZ-Instagram" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/360VUZ-Instagram</a> 
Our VUZ Mobile App Link:&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/360VUZ-App-PR" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/360VUZ-App-PR</a>

VUZ, formerly known as 360VUZ

<a href="http://www.vuz.com/" target="_blank">www.VUZ.com</a>&nbsp;is a tech company founded in 2017 and one of the fastest growing web3 and Metaverse innovation platforms in the world. So far, the company has attracted&nbsp;$30M&nbsp;in venture capital. VUZ has reached over 1 billion screen views and has offices in&nbsp;Dubai,&nbsp;Los Angeles, and&nbsp;Riyadh, and counts a team of more than 50 people with specialties in various types of innovation and product development expertise across multiple technology sectors.&nbsp;Won the startup of the year award and won as a finalist in the Webit Founders Games out of 3,500 tech scaleup tech companies including Time Draper as a jury member.

e&amp; capital, from e&amp;

e&amp; capital is the investment pillar of e&amp; that invests in the ideas and people that will build a better and brighter digital future. It supports visionary tech businesses by taking a stake in the company&#39;s success, helping them grow and enabling meaningful progress that moves this world forward. e&amp; capital invests in the startups that dare to disrupt and challenge the way things are, because they believe in something better. It collaborates with bold entrepreneurs to turn their big ideas into the leading businesses of tomorrow.

In light of limitless possibilities, e&amp; capital invests in businesses that have proven the value of their services in specific market(s) and helps them achieve scale that also benefits consumers and the whole ecosystem.

VUZ the Leading Immersive Social App Raises $20M in Series B Round

UAE-based eyewear e-commerce player eyewa has raised $7.5 million in a Series A round with plans to expand across the Middle East.

The investment was led by Wamda Capital with participation from GS shop, Equitrust (the investment arm of Choueiri Group), 500 Startups and Faith Capital among others. It brings eyewa&rsquo;s total funding to date to $8.6 million.

Founded in August 2017 by Anass Boumediene and Mehdi Oudghiri, eyewa offers contact lenses, sunglasses and prescription glasses and has seen its team of two grow to 25 since its launch.

&ldquo;Eyewear is a $6 billion&nbsp;market in the Mena&nbsp;[Middle East and North Africa] region, and it is not being serviced properly online. The penetration rate is less than 3-4 per cent&nbsp;in this category, there is a lot of growth ahead of us,&rdquo; said&nbsp;Boumediene.

The company currently has operations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and is now looking to boost its operations and growth across the region.

&ldquo;Looking at global benchmarks of eyewear e-commerce, it is a winner takes it all vertical. Our series A will help us solidify our market leadership in eyewear not only&nbsp;in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but also expand into other Mena&nbsp;markets,&rdquo; said Oudghiri.

eyewa will plans to &quot; further invest in our local infrastructure and build a bigger Saudi-based team, so that we are closer to our customers&rdquo;, said Abdullah Al Rugaib, the Saudi Arabia managing director at eyewa.

eyewa was recently selected as one of the top 100 Arab startups by the World Economic Forum and is currently the Middle East&rsquo;s largest online eyewear retailer.

&ldquo;Our investment in eyewa is a continuation of our thesis of investing in category defining vertical e-commerce businesses that are set to own their respective spaces. We believe eyewa is very well positioned to dominate the online eyewear segment,&rdquo; said Khaled Talhouni, managing partner at Wamda Capital. &ldquo;The team at eyewa have demonstrated an uncanny ability to scale their business and we are excited to become part of that journey alongside our co-investment partners.&rdquo;

eyewa raises $7.5 million in Series A

Dubai-based bluk grocery eocmmerce platform BulkWhiz has closed its Series A, the startup announced today in a statement to&nbsp;MENAbytes. BulkWhiz did not disclose the exact size of investment but has confirmed to&nbsp;MENAbytes&nbsp;that it is a multi-million (USD) round.

The round was led by Dubai-based BECO Capital (who have just closed their second fund with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.menabytes.com/beco-second-fund/" target="_blank">$100 million</a>) and joined by China&rsquo;s MSA Capital (who&rsquo;ve been very active in the region lately), 500 Startups (500 Flacons), and Kuwait-based Faith Capital.

Founded in late 2016 (launched in 2017) by Amira Rashad who previously worked for Facebook and Yahoo (from their offices in Dubai) and Yusuf Saber who was the Data Science Lead at Careem,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bulkwhiz.com/" target="_blank">BulkWhiz</a>&nbsp;enables consumers and small businesses buy groceries and household products in bulk through its mobile apps or web-based platform.

The prices on the platform drop as the users increase quantity of a product in their cart. BulkWhiz has built its own proprietary AI technology to make it easier for users to buy groceries online by learning from consumer behavior and personalizing experience to their needs.&nbsp;Its app comes with a buy again page to help users go through a list of items they&rsquo;ve purchased in previous orders and add them to cart in a few taps.

Amira Rashad, the co-founder and CEO of BulkWhiz, in an interview last year had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sme10x.com/entrepreneurship-2/bulkwhiz-grocery-shopping-made-simple" target="_blank">said</a>&nbsp;that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ideal solution to everyone&rsquo;s grocery shopping problem, &ldquo;By factoring in everything from shopping behaviours to weather patterns, BulkWhiz&rsquo;s proprietary, home-grown, AI technology helps shoppers optimize household consumption and save money, time and effort. BulkWhiz helps you simplify grocery shopping by creating a one time, personalised shopping list of the grocery items you buy constantly. It gives you a simple and user-friendly interface to manage your household buying needs with clever features like the ability to snooze or modify orders with one click. The list is powered by technology to help you never run out of key essentials like toilet paper or diapers.&rdquo;

In another interview, talking about their first AI product Quantifier, Amira had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/315265" target="_blank">said</a>, &ldquo;Most people in the region are not used to buying in bulk are not sure how much to buy of any given item, and how often to buy it. That is why we developed the Quantifier, which asks you 1-2 simple questions related to the category of the item needed, and then advises you on the product configuration and frequency that best suits your needs.&rdquo;

Grocery, according to the statement by BulkWhiz accounts for ~$175 billion across the Middle East &amp; North Africa and grocery ecommerce in the region per statement stands at 1 percent compared to 8 percent in more advanced markets.

The Dubai-based startup that has been witnessing 30 percent (plus) month over month growth did not share the specifics but said that it will use the latest investment to continue building its proprietary AI, add new channels and expand to new markets.

Amira Rashad, co-founder and CEO of BulkWhiz, said, &ldquo;We are very excited to be scaling our platform to address a huge market opportunity across the region through leveraging our homegrown technology. As a mom, I am acutely aware of the challenges of grocery shopping from wasted time, and running out, to not getting proper service or value for money. Frankly, I am excited that BulkWhiz is addressing all these challenges one by one for MENA consumers.&rdquo;

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