Seed

Pre-Seed

Series C

Series B

Series A

Others

Debt Financing

Africa

Levant

Asia (ex. GCC & Levant)

Rest of World

Riyadh

Omar Almajdouie

Saed Nashef

Talal Alasmari

Wael Nafee

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

Investment in Startup

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RAED Ventures

Real Estate

Fintech

E-Commerce

Transportation

Retail & Wholesale

Art-Media-Entertainment

Education

AI/IoT

RAED Ventures is an early and growth stage venture capital firm established in Riyadh in 2015.

Series D

Tabby

BNPL

Lending

Tabby is a buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform that allows shoppers to split their purchases into multiple installments at no additional cost from various merchants.

Pre-IPO

TruKKer

Logistics

Freight Service

Supply Chain Management

TruKKer is a technology-enabled truck aggregator that operates multiple truck types for multiple end markets.

Dubai

Swvl

Internet

Swvl is a tech-enabled mobility platform that provides safe, reliable, and convenient mass transit solutions in 115 cities worldwide, including Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Foodics

Software Dev/Test

Foodtech

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

Unifonic

Support & Management Services

Marketing/Sales

Customer Experience

Customer engagement platform that unifies communication channels to enable organizations to delight customers.

Makkah

Salla

Technology

SaaS

Salla allows users to easily set up an e-commerce store in Arabic through their platform.

Dammam

Sary

Marketplace

MENAP B2B marketplace connecting small businesses with wholesalers and lenders to procure supply efficiently.

Lean

Financial Services

Predictive Analytics

Lean is a B2B fintech platform that builds developer-friendly APIs. Developers can build and launch cutting-edge financial products to connect to their users’ bank accounts.

Fetchr

Fetchr is a Dubai-based logistics and delivery company that offers real-time tracking, scheduling, and innovative solutions for businesses and individuals in the MENA region and beyond.

Syarah

Automotive

Syarah specializes in online car sales, offering assistance with purchases and financing options in Saudi Arabia and the region.

Noon Academy

EdTech

E-Learning

Social learning platform making learning a more joyful, collaborative, and innovative experience.

Opontia

Provides a fast and fair way for small e-commerce business owners to sell their companies.

Cairo

Trella

Logistics & Storage

Shipping

Trella is a b2b technology platform and trucking marketplace that connects shippers with carriers in the highly fragmented freight industry.

Bayzat

Insurance

Bayzat is a technology SaaS company that provides insurance, payroll, and human resources solutions for businesses.

Qlub

Payment

Restaurants

Qlub develops a fast and secure payment solution for consumers in restaurants.

Amman

Tamatem

Gaming

Tamatem is a mobile games publisher that focuses on providing the users with culturally relevant games.

Sylndr

Automotive focused e-commerce marketplace bringing innovation to the used-cars market.

Quant Data & Analytics

Saudi consultancy which provides Data Science, AI and BI services and SaaS products.

Slurrp Farm

Rabbit

Rabbit is an Egyptian company that offers fast grocery and item delivery from local fulfillment centers to customers' homes, with a promise of delivery within 20 minutes or less.

Wafeq

IT & Communication

Accounting

Software

Easy-to-use accounting software that empowers SMEs to run their business better.

Mozn

Market leader in enterprise AI technologies that empower organizations, with a focus on Arabic NLU and Finance intelligence.

Sifi

SiFi aims to assist companies get in control of their expenses.

buildnow

Credit

Business Development

Morni

Interactive platform that provides roadside assistant services.

Hala

Hala is a prominent fintech company that seeks to transform financial services and develop the future bank for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Sheikh Zayed

Grinta

Grinta is a pharmaceutical supply chain that uses AI and ML to empower local pharmacies.

Taager

Social e-commerce platform enabling online merchants with end-to-end logistics.

Lamaa

Finance

Intelligent Systems

Lamaa develops financial technology solutions to small and medium enterprises.

SimpliFi

Mission to democratize payments by building the leading Cards as a Service (CaaS) platform for MENA and Pakistan.

Crowd Analyzer

Analytics

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

Dawul

Social Network

Dawul is a platform that allows investors to share details of the financial status of their portfolios with other investors.

palm.hr

Golden Scent

Leading Saudi beauty ecommerce platforms.

Al Khobar

ALWANS

Funding

Investment

Advisory and Consulting

Entrepreneurship

ALWANS is a leading saudi company with diverse interests and capabilities.

ZEAL

Retail

Eventtus

Guides

Eventtus is an engagement platform to manage events, sell tickets and build an interactive event app in few minutes.

Lahore

Zarya App

Melltoo

Mobile marketplace for buying and selling second hand things.

Aqarmap

Real estate marketplace that specializes in providing real-estate management services.

SocialDice

Innovative hiring solution that makes hiring easy, smart and fun tailored for SMEs in the Middle East & North Africa.

Manama

Malaeb

Media

Entertainment

Community app for football players that allows you to join matches and book fields

Tweeq

Digital Banking

Expense Tracker

Tweeq is offering a a feature-rich spending account for modern individuals and SME's with a user first approach.

Dhad

Audio publishing house that produces and publishes books.

MRSOOL

Logistic

MRSOOL connects with people around you who will help you with your tasks, it allows users to order a wide range of products, including food, groceries, and household items, from local stores and have them delivered to their doorstep.

California

Vectara

Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Developer

Vectara is the Trusted Generative AI for Enterprise Applications, a Serverless Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) platform that simplifies RAG & ML pipeline for better generative outcomes in applications, chatbots, and products.

Vectara's product is an end-to-end Serverless Retrieval Augmented Generation API platform for embeddingpowerful generative AI functionality into applications, chatbots, and products with extraordinary results that are grounded in, and never trained on, the data, documents, and knowledge that they have. Built on a solid hybrid-search core, Vectara delivers the shortest path to a correct answer-action through a safe, secure, and trusted entry point that allows businesses to quickly, safely, and affordably integrate best-in-class conversational AI and question-answering into their application with zero-shot precision. Vectara's serverless RAG platform solves critical problems required for enterprise adoption, namely: reduces hallucination, provides explainability, provenance, enforces access control, allows for real-time updatability of the knowledge, and mitigates intellectual property and bias concerns from large language models.

Vectara is your GenAI Partner, our commitment to value co-creation and mutual success is intrinsic to Vectara’s Ecosystem Partnerships, designed to foster collective enrichment for “Better Together” differentiation, and co-shape the ‘art of possible’ in GenAI Ecosystem.

525K

Riyad-based social trading platform Dawul announced on Tuesday that it has raised $5 million in a seed round led by RAED Ventures with participation from Impact46, Seedra Ventures, Derayah Venture and Sukna Ventures.

Dawul platform is the leading platform specialized in social trading. Established in 2020, it acquired a permit from the Saudi Capital Market Authority to conduct financial technology experiments by the end of the same year, and  was officially launched in July 2021. Dawul is built to help beginner investors keep looking for automated ways to execute trades or, what’s even better, follow professional traders and their portfolios and investment strategies. This way, they can obtain details of the traders’ operations directly and in real time.

Dawul also introduced the “investment funds” product, which allows users to view the data of investment funds in the Saudi market, and to see all updates and analysis related to their own preferred funds. All this is through alerts and notifications that are sent periodically to help beginners in making decisions regarding the buying and selling of stocks, and the building of their investment portfolios in a transparent and safe manner.

Dawul plans to take advantage of this investment round by expanding its offers of social trading-related products, as well as expanding its network in the Middle East and North Africa. The platform aims to target the American and British market with its services,  while focusing its efforts on recruiting talent in the fintech industry.

“We are excited to move forward with this fund and we expect to be the first choice for traders in the region based on our value, upgrading the investor experience, and improving transparency in the financial sector,” said Mr. Mansour Al-Harbi, Founder and CEO of Dawul, in response to this funding round.

Co-founder of RAED Ventures Mr. Talal Alasmari commented on this funding round: “There are enormous opportunities behind the concept of social trading which have not yet been applied in the region. We are pleased to be investing in Dawul platform which is the first to introduce this concept to the Saudi market through a safe and transparent platform, and with the support of the Capital Market Authority to raise awareness among investors. We believe in the ability of the Dawul team to expand and serve  the whole MENA region.”

“The initiatives from public and private sectors on the importance of investment, along with the people’s awareness of the value of investments, there is a gap of knowledge in the investment field and its risk. Dawul’s fills the gap by empowering experts in the investment field to share their experience. We bet on the vast experience of Mansour Al-Harbi driving the social trading platform Dawul forward” Mohammed Alnasyan from Impact46 commented on the investment.

Saudi’s Social Trading Platform Dawul raises $5 Million in seed round with participation from Impact46

Foodics, a Saudi cloud-based point-of-sale system for F&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’ total investment raised so far to $8 million. The startup had raised its $4 million Series A in 2017.

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

Saudi-based Foodics has raised $4 million in its Series A round. This is the first-ever external funding for the startup and was led by Saudi VCs: Raed Venture & Riyad TAQNIA Fund (RTF). Naseel Holding & 500 Startups also participated in the round.

Saudi-based restaurant management startup Foodics raises $4 million

TechCrunch Logo

Startups
Dubai-based buy now, pay later platform tabby raises $50M at $300M valuation
Tage Kene-Okafor
2:59 AM PDT • August 4, 2021
Comment

Tabby
Image Credits: Tabby
These past few years have seen the emergence of buy now, pay later services worldwide, with leading players raising buttloads of cash to serve an insatiable young adult population who don’t fancy credit cards or paying interest.

In what seems to be a consolidation of some sorts, fintech juggernaut Square acquired Australian buy now, pay later giant Afterpay in a mouthwatering $29 billion deal this week.

The deal is a sign of things to come for established markets like Europe and the U.S. and promising markets witnessing a proliferation of these services. For instance, in the Middle East, not less than ten startups offering BNPL services have launched within the past three years.

Square to buy ‘buy now, pay later’ giant Afterpay in $29B deal

Tabby is one such service and clearly the most known in the region. Today, it is announcing that it has raised a $50 million Series B, valuing the company at $300 million.

Global Founders Capital and STV led the funding round, with participation from Delivery Hero and CCVA. Existing investors, including Arbor Ventures, Mubadala Investment Capital, Raed Ventures, Global Ventures, MSA Capital, VentureSouq, Outliers VC, JIMCO, and HOF, also participated.

Dubai-based buy now, pay later platform tabby raises $50M at $300M valuation

UAE-founded Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider tabby  has raised Series A financing round of $23 million in debt and equity led by Arbor Ventures and Mubadala Capital, with participation from STV, Raed Ventures, Global Founders Capital, JIMCO, Global Ventures, Venture Souq, Outliers VC, MSA Capital, HOF and AB Accelerator. This funding will fuel the company’s next stage of growth, helping tabby scale its product and engineering capabilities in addition to its lending capacity, further benefiting its merchant partners and consumers.

tabby raises $23 million in Series A

UAE-based Tabby, a buy now, pay later financial technology (fintech) startup, has raised $7 million to fund its growth and launch its offering in Saudi Arabia. The funding round was led by Raed Ventures with participation from MSA Capital and existing investor Arbor Ventures.

Tabby raises $7 million and expands to Saudi Arabia

E-commerce roll-up play Opontia launched in June, raising $20 million in debt and equity to acquire older, small e-commerce brands in the Middle East and Africa. Today, the company confirmed to TechCrunch that it has closed a subsequent round, a $42 million Series A nine months after it was founded.

Roll-up plays are generally known to secure more debt than equity when they raise mega-round deals. Opontia’s seed round was the case, but the share between equity and venture debt stands at about 50% each for its Series A financing.

STV led the round, with Raed Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Upper90 and VentureSouq participating. Angel investors Salman Butt of Salla and Wiktor Namysl of McKinsey Poland joined, as well. San Francisco-based venture debt fund Partners for Growth funded Opontia’s debt financing.

TechCrunch gathered that Opontia has somewhat switched focus on its target market. Though it launched with eyes on the Middle East and Africa, the company has only made efforts in some parts of the former (the UAE and Saudi Arabia) while making significant headway into Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Turkey and Poland.

Opontia gets $42M to buy more e-commerce brands in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa

Razor Group. Branded. Thrasio. These are big names in the new wave of e-commerce companies taking the world by storm. Their business of acquiring small e-commerce brands that look promising and consolidating them is quite popular in the U.S. and Europe.

The concept has sifted through those shores to Latin America and Asia, where companies like Una Brands and Valoreo have raised significant investment to acquire and build these brands. Today, the concept has made its way into the Middle East and Africa as Opontia has closed a financing of $20 million to acquire and scale e-commerce brands across the regions.

This seed round, one of the largest in the Middle East and Africa, is a mix of debt and equity financing. While Opontia does not disclose the ratio of equity and debt, it confirmed that the majority was debt which will be used to make acquisitions.

Investors include Global Founders Capital, Presight Capital, Raed Ventures and Kingsway Capital. The angel investors that participated are also notable names in e-commerce across EMEA; they include Tushar Ahluwalia, CEO of Razor Group; Jonathan Doerr, the former CEO of Daraz and co-founder of Jumia; and Hosam Arab, the CEO of Tabby and the former CEO of Namshi.

Valoreo closes on $50M to roll up LatAm e-commerce brands



Opontia was founded by co-CEOs Philip Johnston and Manfred Meyer in March 2021. Opontia has teams in Dubai and Riyadh, with professionals from Amazon, Zomato, Noon.com, Namshi, McKinsey and Uber Eats. In the coming months, the company plans to open in Cairo, Istanbul and Lagos.

Opontia raises $20M to roll up e-commerce brands in Africa and the Middle East

Saudi Arabia-based e-commerce Salla, has closed a SAR32 million ($8.5 million) Series A round led by STV, with participation from existing investors Raed Ventures and Vision Ventures.

Founded in 2016 by Nawaf Hariri and Salman Butt, Salla enables SMEs and e-commerce startups to establish their digital stores in Arabic. To date, the startup has processed eight million orders valued at over SAR2 billion ($533 million) in gross merchandise value (GMV) through the 10,000 online stores on its platform. 

The company offers a freemium subscription model with three tiers, offering small businesses the ability to set up their operations free of charge, and upgrade their subscription based on their needs and requirements.

Salla raises $8.5 million in Series A

Saudi-based e-commerce platform Salla just raised seed funding in a round that’s led by Saudi VC Raed Ventures, followed by Vision Ventures, Inspire Ventures, and Direct Influence, a media agency.

The startup Salla (which translated to basket in Arabic) founded back in 2016 by Nawaf Hariri and Salman Butt, allows users to set up their e-commerce store in Arabic and sell their products and services to customers. In addition, users can set up their own branded store (with their own domain name) by selecting a design of their liking available on Salla. The owners of the e-commerce stores can then manage their inventory by using Salla’s website or app.

Not only that, but Salla also provides different types of reports and tools that help store owners with automatic invoices, integration, Instagram, customer database, the ability to block customers, pin favorite products, have offers and discounts and more.

Although the amount raised was undisclosed, the founders of Salla will be using the investment to expand into other local and regional markets, and accelerate their growth.

This Saudi e-commerce platform just got funded!

Trella, a Cairo-based digital freight marketplace in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (Menap), has closed a successful $42 million funding round, comprising $30 million new equity and $12 million debt facilities.

The equity element was led by Maersk Growth and Raed Ventures. Other participating investors include Algebra Ventures, Vision Ventures, Next Billion Ventures, Venture Souq, Foundation Ventures and Flexport. The debt facilities are being provided by Lendable - the next generation lending platform and other local financial institutions.

Founded in 2018, Trella is a technology platform ‘reinventing trucking’ across emerging markets, and has a current market presence in three countries; its home market - Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Its four co-founders include Omar Hagrass, Ali El Atrash, Pierre Saad and Muhammad El Garem.

Egypt's Trella raises $42 million in debt and equity

Wafeq, a modern and easy-to-use accounting platform, has announced the completion of its $3 million seed round. The Dubai headquartered company’s seed round was led by Raed Ventures and saw participation from Wamda Capital, both of which are two of the most prominent names in the region’s early-stage funding ecosystem. 

Built for the unmet finance and accounting needs of small and medium businesses in the Middle East, this fundraise will fuel Wafeq’s entry into Egypt, while doubling down on its presence in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Businesses using Wafeq create over 630,000 invoices every month, with total monthly invoiced amounts exceeding $117 million (SAR 440 mn+).

In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE SMEs comprise over 98%, 90% 94% of all companies registered respectively. With most regional accounting still done manually or through legacy software, and global solutions not compatible with country-specific requirements, Wafeq was founded to help SMEs run a better business by solving their finance and accounting challenges. 

With the digitisation of accounting practices in Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the introduction of corporate tax in the UAE, the three largest economies in North Africa and the GCC are undergoing a significant shift in financial reporting. Wafeq meets every requirement of Saudi Arabia’s Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA), the UAE's Federal Tax Authority, and soon the Egyptian Tax Authority.

Nadim Alameddine, CEO & founder, Wafeq, said, "Thriving small and medium businesses continue to power the engines of our economy. However as they grow, they need to comply with current and new accounting regulations in this dynamic ecosystem. With Wafeq, we are simplifying and reimagining accounting compliance for business owners and accountants. Together with the backing of Raed Ventures and Wamda Capital, we are excited about our entry into Egypt while growing our presence in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.” 

Wafeq’s technology helps businesses run better, by staying compliant with existing and new laws without losing focus on their core operations.  The company’s platform streamlines the entire accounting process for its clients, from building records to tracking sales and invoicing, to automating bank transactions and generating reports. With its recent funding, Wafeq will continue to innovate and build new product functionalities, while also focusing on customer acquisition and hiring strategically across technical and non-technical roles

Talal Alasmari, founding partner, Raed Ventures commented, "We are thrilled to back Wafeq as they solve a problem that impacts thousands of businesses in the region. The digitalisation of accounting practices will truly transform how SMEs here operate, increasing operational transparency, creating efficiencies and contributing to economic growth."

Wafeq also offers a standalone e-invoicing API enabling businesses to stay compliant with e-invoicing regulations while maintaining their existing accounting software. This solution will allow startups and large businesses who require a reliable third party to manage the complexities of e-invoicing, which legacy solutions cannot meet. 

Fadi Ghandour, executive chairman, Wamda Capital added, "Wafeq’s team and vision for helping businesses in the Middle East streamline their accounting processes is unparalleled. We are excited about what the platform can achieve for businesses in the region and their ability to make a meaningful impact.”  

Launched in 2019, Wafeq initially focused on startups and acquired customers in category-leading businesses such as Tabby, Lean Technologies, DAPI, Fenix, PiFlow, Ziina, Platinum List and Invygo. It then quickly expanded to long-tail SMEs in a diverse range of industries, including contracting, food and beverage, ecommerce, retail, and more.

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