Series C

Series B

Series A

Others

Series D

Seed

Pre-Seed

Pre-IPO

Series F

Rest of World

Levant

Africa

Riyadh

Abdulrahman Tarabzouni

Ahmad AlNaimi

Dr. Mazin Alzaidi

Ihsan Jawad

Luca Barbi

If you're looking to accelerate your company's growth, pitch to us and let's make it happen.

Investment in Startup

STV: A leader in funding 1. View investment focus, portfolio details, and trends at Lucidity Insights.

Fintech

E-Commerce

Logistics & Storage

Retail & Wholesale

Education

Digital & ICT

Foodtech

Healthcare

IT & Communication

Art-Media-Entertainment

Support & Management Services

STV established itself in 2018 and is the largest privately-held technology VC investment firm launched in the Middle East to date.

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.

Dubai

Careem

Transportation

Delivery

Ride Sharing

Providing a range of daily services, Careem is a Dubai-based ride-hailing and super app company that aims to simplify people's daily lives in over 100 cities across 13 countries.

TruKKer

Logistics

Freight Service

Supply Chain Management

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

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

Flowers

Marketplace

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

Unifonic

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

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

Vezeeta

Medical

Software

Provides patients with a digital healthcare booking platform and management software.

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.

San Francisco

Firefly

Media

Advertising Services

Digital

Firefly is a mobility based advertising and data platform that allows rideshare drivers to make money through digital advertising.

Qlub

Payment

Financial Services

Restaurants

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

Cairo

Homzmart

Homzmart is an online end-to-end platform that sells home furniture, home décor, lighting, and home supplies.

MANAFA Capital

Funding

Finance

Crowdfunding

Investment marketplace for innovative businesses regulated by the Saudi Capital Market Authority

Manama

Calo

Food and Beverage

Wellness

Calo is Founded in 2019 by Ahmed AlRawi and Moayed Almoayed, Calo serves personalized meal subscriptions.

Abyan Capital

Wealth Management

spiderSilk

Security

Cybersecurity

spiderSilk delivers high impact adversarial cyber-attack simulations for the public and private sectors, globally.

zenda

zenda is a fintech app that enables to pay school fees with pay-now and pay-later options, unlocking rewards for paying on time.

Telfaz11

Entertainment

Talent Management

Media Production

Specializes in the fields of talent management, comedy, entertainment, content creation, and storytelling

Sabbar

Sabbar is a niche on-demand staffing platform for gig workers in the retail, hospitality, and entertainment industries in MENA.

Gathern

Hospitality

Travel

Rental

P2P marketplace for vacation rentals licensed by MT. Gathern offers a wide range of advantages for both Guests and Hosts.

Amman

Wajeez

Wajeez is a paid app that provides users with audio and text summaries of nonfiction books in Arabic.

Proof

Marketing

Proof Experiences enables your marketing team to personalize your website for each visitor without writing a single line of code.The company enables your marketing team to personalize text, images, and CTAs no matter what platform your site is built on.

Jeddah

Levers

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.

Intelmatix

Deeptech

AI/IoT

ntelmatix is a deep-tech AI company with a wide range of capabilities that address sector challenges by providing tailored solutions and unique products.

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.

D360 Bank

Banking

Furniture and home goods e-commerce platform Homzmart has closed one of the past year's biggest funding rounds for a Middle Eastern and North Africa start-up, raising $23 million, its chief executive said.

The company, launched in 2020, will use the new funding to expand services, especially logistics, and fill gaps that appear in supply chains, co-founder and CEO Mahmoud Ibrahim said in an interview with Reuters.

The latest pre series B round funding round, which included participation from Riyadh-based technology venture capital fund STV, Impact46, Outliers Venture Capital, Rise Capital and Nuwa Capital, brings its total funding to about $40 million.

It raised $15 million in an earlier round that closed in the second quarter of last year, after an initial round in which it raised about $2.5 million.

Homzmart started by connecting brands and manufacturers with customers in the Arab world's most populous country. But it found gaps in supply chains that prompted it to create a logistics arm, and now has about 100 trucks.

It also in March acquired Berlin-based home interior design firm MockUp Studio, which uses artificial intelligence to make designs.

Earlier this year the company's activities expanded to Saudi Arabia, and Ibrahim said it had achieved solid growth there. "The percentage of activity in the Kingdom is now between 25% and 30% of the total volume of Homzmart business," he said in the interview on Sunday.

The company says it serves 25 million houses in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with more than 150,000 products on the platform.

Homzmart has not yet achieved profitability but Ibrahim said it is still focused on expansion and building market share "through lazer-focused profitability milestones".

Investment in MENA start-up Homzmart rises to $40 million after latest round

Kuwait-based flowers and gifts marketplace Floward, has raised $27.5 million in a Series B funding round led by STV with participation from Impact46.
Established in 2017 by Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, Floward offers fresh-cut flowers coupled with gifts and other products sourced from local and international brands with same-day delivery schedules.
The startup claims that it has seen over 10x growth in 2020, adding that its revenues during the first 100 days of 2021 surpassed full-year 2020 earnings.
Press release

Floward, the go-to online flowers and gifts delivery destination in the MENA region announced today it has raised USD 27.5 million in Series B funding round led by STV with participation from Impact46.

Established in 2017 by Founder and CEO Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, Floward is a full-fledged e-commerce solution that offers prime fresh-cut flowers coupled with gifts and products from local and international brands with same day delivery. This fragmented sector has traditionally been largely dominated by brick and mortar shops with almost no presence online, giving Floward the opportunity to become the market leader in the MENA region.

“Since our launch four years ago, we have been on a clear and rapid growth path that was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic as e-commerce penetration saw a huge surge during the past year. These circumstances presented to us clear opportunities and accelerated our growth plans in the MENA region and beyond, specifically into London, UK – our first expansion outside the region,” CEO Abdulaziz Al Loughani said.

Floward has earned a leading market position in the flowers vertical, making in the largest flowers business in the whole MENA region in just under four years, as it now operates in 20 cities across seven countries with a team of over 450 members and counting.

Al Loughani added, “Floward has seen over 10x growth in 2020, in the first 100 days of 2021 our revenues have surpassed those of the entire year of 2020. We have a clear expansion strategy that follows our own set playbook allowing us to swiftly and seamlessly expand to new markets with the aim to become a major global player in the flowers and gifts industry, with a clear path to positive unit economics and profitability.”

“Today marks an important milestone of our journey at Floward. We want to partner with like-minded deep-rooted entrepreneurs, creative, determined and bold movers that are willing to change the status quo. We are proud to announce our partnership with STV joined with Impact46 and are confident that this partnership along with Floward’s team will help in marking ourselves as a global player in the flowers and gifts industry”, Al Loughani concluded.

Ahmad Al Naimi, Partner at STV said: “We’re excited to join Floward on their mission to master consumer gifting. They have shown impressive understanding of consumer trends, coupled with perfect execution of the customer experience and supply chain. We’re happy to partner with them as they expand their footprint to new markets and new products.”

Floward raises $27.5 million in Series B

Floward, the go-to online flowers and gifts destination in MENA and UK, announced today, during its participation in the technology conference “LEAP” in Riyadh, KSA; that it has raised USD156 million in its Series C Pre-IPO investment round led by Aljazira Capital, Rainwater Partners, and STV.

The company intends to utilise the funds to further invest in expanding its gifting verticals and relying more on artificial intelligence and machine learning to elevate its customer experience and meet the demands of its ever-growing customer base in the region.

Floward will also use the funds to roll out its mergers and acquisitions strategy, as it plans to consolidate and invest in local brands that champion different categories of its target gifting verticals. Notably, Floward has recently acquired Mubkhar, the leading brand defining authentic standards of perfumery in the GCC, in November 2022.

Chairman and CEO of Floward, Mr. Abdulaziz B. Al Loughani, said: “We are proud to announce the successful closing of our investment round led by Aljazira Capital, Rainwater Partners, and STV. We would like to extend our gratitude for their trust in our team who has achieved remarkable results and driven the company's valuation to grow by 3.8x since our last funding round a year and a half ago amid the challenging global investment climate. Our commitment to the region has delivered 50 million flower stems in 2022, created more than 1,000 direct jobs, and partnered with +400 brands and local talents who have produced some of the best brands on a global scale.

Floward raises $156 million in pre-IPO Series C round

20 April 2022, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. FOODICS , the leading cloud-based technology and payments platform for restaurants in the MENA region, has successfully raised $170 million in a Series C funding round led by Prosus, one of the largest global technology investors in the world, and Sanabil Investments, a PIF-owned investment company focused on private growth   investments in various stages of the business cycle. Other investors included Sequoia Capital India and existing investors including STV, Endeavor Catalyst and Vision Ventures.

FOODICS Raises $170 million in Largest SaaS Series C Round in MENA

Saudi Arabia-based food and beverage (F&B) retail and restaurant management platform FOODICS, has raised $20 million in a Series B round, Led by Sanabil Investments and co-led by STV, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, Elm and Derayah. This latest investment brings the total funds raised by FOODICS to date to $28 million.

FOODICS raises $20 million in Series B

Tabby, the MENA’s leading shopping and financial services app, has raised $200 million in equity financing led by Wellington Management, one of the world’s leading independent investment management firms. The equity financing drew additional participation from growth equity investor Bluepool Capital, in addition to existing investors STV, Mubadala Investment Capital, PayPal Ventures and Arbor Ventures. Tabby’s Series D round values the company at over $1.5 billion making it the region’s first fintech unicorn ahead of its planned IPO in Saudi Arabia.

Tabby closes $200 million Series D at $1.5 billion valuation

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – 18 January 2023: Tabby, one of MENA’s leading shopping and financial services apps, has raised $58 million from Sequoia Capital India, STV, PayPal Ventures, Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures and Endeavor Catalyst in a Series C round which values the company at $660 million. The fundraise will be used to expand Tabby’s product line into next-gen consumer financial services and support the company’s growing operations. This round makes Tabby one of the most valuable startups in MENA and the first in the GCC to receive funding from PayPal Ventures.

Tabby raises $58M Series C from Sequoia Capital India, STV and PayPal Ventures

Sequoia Capital India and Saudi venture capital firm STV led a $54 million funding round for Tabby, the Middle East’s largest buy-now, pay-later provider, as demand fintech solutions booms.

Existing investors Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures, and Global Founders Capital also participated in the Series B capital raise, according to a statement. The firm has so far raised $180 million in debt and equity.

Sequoia, STV Lead $54 Million Funding for Gulf Fintech Tabby

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

Vezeeta, a healthcare platform operating in the Middle East and Africa, has raised a $40 Million Series D funding round led by UAE-based Gulf Capital, alongside further investment from existing Riyadh-based investor Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), which previously led Vezeeta’s Series C round in September 2018. Vezeeta’s other investors include BECO Capital, Silicon Badia, Vostok New Ventures, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures and Endeavour Catalyst. Prior to this raise, the company had raised $23M, so this latest news takes its total to $63M. Alvaro Abella, a director at Gulf Capital, joins the board.

It now plans to roll out new products, such as an online pharmacy, as well as ‘tele-health’ services across its existing footprint and new markets.

This is one of the largest funding rounds of any tech startup in the Middle East and Africa to date. The startup has become something of a MENA success story by allowing patients to effectively see Uber-style ratings for healthcare providers, thus encouraging the providers to improve their services. It puts the power in the hands of patients (vs providers) by giving them the ability to search, book, rate, and review healthcare providers.

Middle East healthcare platform Vezeeta raises $40M Series D led by Gulf Capital

One of the major structural issues in the Middle East is the lack of consistent healthcare across the region. So this market was clearly waiting to be disrupted by technology.

In 2011 Vezeeta came along to change that. Launched initially in Cairo as a sort of “Uber for Ambulances”, it has since expanded to cover a wide area of the MENA population across several cities, and now provides a much wider range of health services to both patients and healthcare professionals (and is also appearing at next month’s Startup Battlefield MENA in Beirut).

By solving the ambulance problem, it reversed backwards inside the healthcare systems to provide a free of charge medical search platform for end users by integrating information about medical practices and doctors’ individual schedules. This scheduling system is provided on a paid subscription basis for medical personnel, allowing users to find a free slot in a doctor’s schedule and make appointments. And it’s gradually going well beyond that.

Vezeeta, has today announced a Series C investment of $12M led by Saudi Technology Ventures, the largest VC fund in the region. Joining the round are existing investors: BECO Capital (UAE), Vostok New Ventures (Sweden) and Silicon Badia (Jordan), along with new investor Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures (UAE). Vezeeta says the financing will be used to fund its continued expansion primarily in (the increasingly more open) Saudi Arabia and for further investments in key new products.

Competition-wise Vezeeta is in a good place with only smaller players like Dabadoc in Morocco which are usually very region-locked. Vezeeta has alone succeeded in expanding across the whole region.

Vezeeta, the leading MENA healthcare startup, secures $12M Series C led by STV

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

Saudi Arabian software start-up Salla has raised $130 million in an investment round ahead of its initial public offering (IPO).

The fundraising was led by Investcorp, with participation from Sanabil Investment, a wholly owned company of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and STV, a technology venture capital fund and existing shareholder, according to a statement on Monday.

Investcorp said its investmnet was made through its $500 million Saudi-Pre-IPO Growth Fund, which was launched in 2022 to invest in a diversified portfolio of businesses, primarily in Saudi Arabia.

Established in 2016, the company provides an SaaS solution to businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Its fully digitised and automated solution allows merchants to build e-commerce websites, start selling their products online within a few hours, accept online payments and ship their products to the end user.

Saudi start-up Salla raises $130mln from Investcorp, PIF unit

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

Mideast ride-hailing app Careem raises $200 million to expand, expects more funds

Middle East ride-hailing company Careem said on Thursday it had secured $200 million in fresh funding from existing investors and that it expects to raise more to finance expansion plans.
The $200 million came from existing investors which includes Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding, Al Tayyar Group, STV and Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten. Kingdom Holding, which took a 7 percent stake in Careem in 2017, said in a statement its investment in the company was part of its own "strategy to invest in new promising technologies".

Saudi Arabia-based engagement platform Unifonic has raised a $125 million Series B round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 and Sanabil. 

The investment marks Softbank’s first direct investment in a Saudi-based startup and its second in the Middle East after Kitopi.

Founded in 2006 by Ahmed Hamdan and Hassan Hamdan, Unifonic’s technology integrates customer communication channels including text, voice, messaging and web into a single platform to enable companies to communicate directly with customers. 

The startup raised $21 million in its Series A round in 2018 and has since quadrupled in size, processing more than 10 billion transactions on its platform, annually. 

This latest round of investment will fund Unifonic product development and hiring in order to expand into new markets around the globe. 

Press release:

Unifonic, the Riyadh headquartered customer engagement platform, today announces its $125M Series B funding round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Sanabil Investments. Unifonic’s solutions integrate customer communication channels including text, voice, messaging and web into a single platform to enable companies to create stronger customer relationships. 

Consumers expect brands, governments, banks and organisations to connect with them over a growing number of channels. As newer channels emerge, and user preferences change over time, organisations rely on Unifonic to maximise customer engagement and optimise communication returns on investment.

From SMS for online banking to WhatsApp vaccination requests, Unifonic empowers organisations to transform customer experience while allowing them to focus on core business activities without maintaining costly communication infrastructures.

The round sets a new Series B investment record for technology startups in the Middle East, strengthening Unifonic’s leadership and growth potential in emerging markets. It also marks SoftBank’s first direct investment in a Saudi-based company and further consolidates Sanabil’s ambitions to invest in high-growth, high-impact technology start-ups in the country.

Faisal Rehman, Managing Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, said; “Consumers and businesses are increasingly sophisticated in how they communicate digitally, but this has created fragmentation across multiple emerging channels. Unifonic’s technology manages this complexity into a single platform, enabling enterprise clients to form closer relationships with their customers. Our investment team on the ground in Riyadh has followed Unifonic for some time and we have witnessed first-hand the company’s progress in establishing significant market leadership in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We look forward to supporting the Unifonic team in scaling the platform across the Middle East and other emerging markets.”

A spokesperson for Sanabil Investments added: “Unifonic is poised to play a significant role in accelerating digital transformation initiatives for public and private enterprise in the Middle East. And so, we wanted to be a part of their journey, resulting in one of our largest investments in a high growth, high impact technology company in Saudi Arabia. We believe we can play a significant part in strengthening their strategic position and supporting their future international growth, while aligning with the country’s vision of fostering innovation.”

Less than three years after raising the largest Series A funding round in the Middle East at the time, Unifonic has quadrupled in size and now processes over 10 billion transactions on their platform, annually. Unifonic plans to continue this growth trajectory and will be accelerating product development and hiring in order to expand into new markets around the globe whilst bolstering its leading market share across the Middle East.

Ahmed Hamdan, founder and CEO at Unifonic highlighted; “At Unifonic our mission has always been to empower organisations to engage and communicate seamlessly with their customers. I couldn’t be prouder to see our solutions making such a positive impact and reaffirming that mission. This raise is an important milestone in our journey, it will allow us to scale our offerings and expand our reach to enable more organisations to connect with customers reliably and effectively. Our team is our anchor and together we aim to continue this journey and serve our clients in the best ways possible.”

Saudi's Unifonic raises $125 million Series B from Softbank and Sanabil

Saudi Arabia-based engagement platform Unifonic has raised a $125 million Series B round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 and Sanabil.


The investment marks Softbank’s first direct investment in a Saudi-based startup and its second in the Middle East after Kitopi.

Founded in 2006 by Ahmed Hamdan and Hassan Hamdan, Unifonic’s technology integrates customer communication channels including text, voice, messaging and web into a single platform to enable companies to communicate directly with customers. 

The startup raised $21 million in its Series A round in 2018 and has since quadrupled in size, processing more than 10 billion transactions on its platform, annually. 

This latest round of investment will fund Unifonic product development and hiring in order to expand into new markets around the globe. 

Press release:

Unifonic, the Riyadh headquartered customer engagement platform, today announces its $125M Series B funding round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Sanabil Investments. Unifonic’s solutions integrate customer communication channels including text, voice, messaging and web into a single platform to enable companies to create stronger customer relationships. 

Consumers expect brands, governments, banks and organisations to connect with them over a growing number of channels. As newer channels emerge, and user preferences change over time, organisations rely on Unifonic to maximise customer engagement and optimise communication returns on investment.

From SMS for online banking to WhatsApp vaccination requests, Unifonic empowers organisations to transform customer experience while allowing them to focus on core business activities without maintaining costly communication infrastructures.

The round sets a new Series B investment record for technology startups in the Middle East, strengthening Unifonic’s leadership and growth potential in emerging markets. It also marks SoftBank’s first direct investment in a Saudi-based company and further consolidates Sanabil’s ambitions to invest in high-growth, high-impact technology start-ups in the country.

Faisal Rehman, Managing Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, said; “Consumers and businesses are increasingly sophisticated in how they communicate digitally, but this has created fragmentation across multiple emerging channels. Unifonic’s technology manages this complexity into a single platform, enabling enterprise clients to form closer relationships with their customers. Our investment team on the ground in Riyadh has followed Unifonic for some time and we have witnessed first-hand the company’s progress in establishing significant market leadership in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We look forward to supporting the Unifonic team in scaling the platform across the Middle East and other emerging markets.”

A spokesperson for Sanabil Investments added: “Unifonic is poised to play a significant role in accelerating digital transformation initiatives for public and private enterprise in the Middle East. And so, we wanted to be a part of their journey, resulting in one of our largest investments in a high growth, high impact technology company in Saudi Arabia. We believe we can play a significant part in strengthening their strategic position and supporting their future international growth, while aligning with the country’s vision of fostering innovation.”

Less than three years after raising the largest Series A funding round in the Middle East at the time, Unifonic has quadrupled in size and now processes over 10 billion transactions on their platform, annually. Unifonic plans to continue this growth trajectory and will be accelerating product development and hiring in order to expand into new markets around the globe whilst bolstering its leading market share across the Middle East.

Ahmed Hamdan, founder and CEO at Unifonic highlighted; “At Unifonic our mission has always been to empower organisations to engage and communicate seamlessly with their customers. I couldn’t be prouder to see our solutions making such a positive impact and reaffirming that mission. This raise is an important milestone in our journey, it will allow us to scale our offerings and expand our reach to enable more organisations to connect with customers reliably and effectively. Our team is our anchor and together we aim to continue this journey and serve our clients in the best ways possible.”

Those of you familiar with the incredible rise of Twilio, which came along to utterly disrupt the communications world, will be interested to hear that another player plans to do the same, but this time in the staid and tricky area of emerging markets.

Unifonic, which has been dubbed “the Twilio of emerging markets” has today closed a $21M Series A funding round led by Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), and the emerging market specialist fund Endeavor Catalyst, which is backed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, among others. Other participants include RTF ELM, and Raed Ventures.

At $500M, STV is the largest VC fund in the region, and anchored by the Saudi Telecom Company (STC), the largest telecom company in the Middle East. Former Googler turned VC Abdulrahman Tarabzouni lead this round.

As far as we can tell, the is the largest Series A funding in the history of the Middle East technology sector. Appropriately, it shows the sheer growth in the region and comes on the heels of our recent and highly successful TechCrunch Startup Battlefield MENA in Beirut, as well as the Series C round announced by the “Uber for Doctors” in MENA Vezeeta’s Series C.

The capital will be used by Unifonic to scale the company across the MENA region and globally, and invest in the platform.

Unifonic is similar to Twilio in that it is a B2B cloud communications platform, a space that is sometimes called Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS).
With 100+ employees spread across nine regional offices, and over 5,000 B2B clients, many of whom are giants in the MENA region, such as Souq.com, Aramex, Al Jazeera, HSBC, Uber, FedEx, Carrefour and others, they are the MENA region’s clear No.1 in this arena.

The company was started by two brothers, Hassan and Ahmed Hamdan, who were selected as high-impact Endeavor Entrepreneurs in 2013. They now regularly compete against their European counterpart, MessageBird, which recently raised $60M (led by Accel and Atomico), and their US benchmark, Twilio.

Unifonic, dubbed the Twilio of emerging markets, closes $21M Series A round

Saudi Arabia-based B2B marketplace Sary has raised $30.5 million in a Series B round led by VentureSouq with participation from new investors US-based Rocketship.vc and STV alongside current shareholders Ra’ed Ventures, MSA Capital and Derayah.
Founded in 2018 by Mohammed Aldossary and Khaled Alsiari, Sary connects small businesses with a network of wholesalers and manufacturing brands via mobile and web applications.
Since its inception, the company’s apps were installed by over 100,000 users, and during the pandemic alone, Sary was able to serve over 30,000 verified retail businesses, moving 4 million tonnes of goods across Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam.
This investment will be used to grow Sary’s geographical footprint, expand its suite of products and services, and move into new categories.
Sary is planning to integrate third-party financial services on its platform and is currently developing native fintech products to diversify revenue away from its marketplace towards fintech streams.

Sary raises $30.5 million Series B

Saudi Arabia B2B e-commerce marketplace Sary has raised SR281 million ($75 million) in a Series C round led by Sanabil Investments, with participation from Wafra International Investment Company and Endeavor Catalyst alongside existing investors STV, MSA Capital, Rocketship.vc, VentureSouq, and Ra’ed Ventures. 
This round takes the total raised by the startup to $112 million.
Founded in 2018 by Mohammed Aldossary and Khaled Alsiari, Sary connects small retailers with a network of wholesalers and manufacturers on its platform.
This comes seven months after Sary raised its $30.5 million Series B round. 
Sary plans to use the fresh funds to invest in product development and geographical expansion.

Sary raises $75 million Series C round

Noon, the Saudi-based Edtech startup offering peer-to-peer social learning for students in the MENA region, announced closing a SAR 153 million ($41 million) Series B funding round.

The round was co-led by Wa’ed Ventures and Raed Ventures, with participation from SVC, STV, Riyadh Valley Company (a subsidiary of King Saud University), Endeavor, Sanabil 500, Qyem Development Holding, and Nahlat Alarab Holding, among other strategic investors.

Through its innovative peer-to-peer, social learning approach, Noon has engaged over 12 million students across Mena and Pakistan.

This effective methodology has not only fostered high levels of engagement but also facilitated the scalability of star teachers. Remarkably, a select group of 50 teachers on Noon have successfully educated six million students. This breakthrough has democratised access to exceptional education, particularly for students in remote areas.

Building upon this notable success, Noon is poised to enhance the traditional classroom experience by integrating its proven approach directly into physical classrooms, furthering its commitment to providing quality education universally, and capitalising on the latest developments in generative AI.

“We exist to radically change the way people learn,” noted Mohammed Aldhalaan, cofounder and CEO at Noon. "As we extend our presence into physical classrooms, our goal is to introduce unparalleled engagement levels within the classroom while providing students with the opportunity to learn from exceptional educators.”

Saudi Edtech Noon is Driving Educational Equity with $41 Million Series B

Riyadh-based online learning platform Noon Academy has raised $8.6 million Series A co-led by Raed Ventures and Saudi Technology Ventures (STV), the startup announced today. It is the largest ever funding round raised by an EdTech startup from the Middle East & North Africa.

The round was also joined by Saudi-based Alisamiah Investment, Saudi Venture Capital Company (SVC), and different individual investors including Careem co-founder Abdulla Elyas, Dr. Abdulrahman Aljadhai, CEO of Elm, and Mazen Aljubair.

Raed Ventures’ Omar Almajdouie, STV’s Hani Enaya and Careem co-founder Abdulla Elyas (who invested in his individual capacity) will join Noon Academy’s Board of Directors.

Founded in 2013 by Mohammed Aldhalaan and Dr. Abdulaziz AlSaeed, Noon Academy that had initially as a simple test prep website is now a social learning platform that enables students to study with friends in groups, compete with one another, and request top tutors on demand. The students, per statement, spend over 60 minutes (on average) on the app per visit, vastly exceeding the EdTech industry average of 14 minutes per visit.

Noon’s web and mobile-based platform offers tutoring and free educational content following a premium model, with users having free access to basic content. For advanced content and access to private tutors, the users are required to pay a monthly fee. The platform, according to the statement, has attracted 2 million students and 1,500 certified tutors to date.

Noon Academy also focuses on helping students pass the Saudi general aptitude test and the achievement test, and is accredited from the Saudi National Centre of Assessment (QIYAS).

Saudi’s Noon Academy raises $8.6 million in largest-ever investment round for an EdTech startup in MENA

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.

Saudi dark store Nana raises $50 million

Market Overview:
Globally, online grocery has grown rapidly. Credit Suisse estimates the market will grow to $285B by 2020. USA and Europe have seen several successful e-grocery start-ups, who have benefited immensely from the fulfilment infrastructure and delivery strategies that emerged from the success of Ecommerce. With examples like Ocado in UK valued at $5B and InstaCart in US valued at $7,6B, Online grocery today is where e-Commerce was 5-10 years ago. Grocery market in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt alone is estimated to be an $83B market. As for Saudi Arabia in specific, it’s a large consumer market with retail as one of the largest sectors of the economy and Grocery is the second-largest expenditure of a Saudi household. While estimates are scarcely available, local financial group SAMBA estimates private consumption by itself accounts for 41.5% of GDP in KSA.

Nana, the product:
Nana started as a dedicated online grocery store targeting the youth demographics and quickly evolved into the largest online grocery marketplace in the Region. Nana, currently serving 14 cities across the Kingdom, follows a marketplace business model by empowering hypermarkets to list and sell their products to millions of Nana users. The online service connects consumers to a network of in-store shoppers who prepare the basket and hand it to the scheduled delivery driver through Nana’s fleet network. Meanwhile, end consumers can follow the progress of their orders journey from placing it up until it is delivered.
Nana has tripled its turnover during the past year and partnered with Carrefour, Panda, SPAR, Farm Superstores, Manuel and many others allowing the platform to offer the widest possible range of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) all over Saudi.

Notably, Nana wasn’t always the platform that it is now. The working business model today is a result of the team’s experiments and trials in the market, starting with a simple question they asked back in 2015, “How can we easily share our shopping list with family members?”, Taking into consideration the huge FMCG sector and variety of products, solving that riddle would require the team to venture into listings in order to serve their clients. Which in turn led Nana to address the steps of purchasing and delivery and finally lock the end-user experience and complete the circle of their customer’s journey under one platform.

Perhaps the most important change of all was the latest shift that Nana went through in 2019 from an e-commerce model (Online Supermarket) to a marketplace model. In both 2017 and 2018.
while Nana was still under the e-commerce model (online supermarket), the team achieved a lot, demonstrated the need of the local market for an online competitor in the food sector, developed an unparalleled technical infrastructure, and built a name and reputation with consumers. Whoever, expansion under the e-commerce model is costly and in most cases reduces the speed and agility of a startup’s growth. Achieving notable growth under this model means high operational expenses and heavy injections on dark Stores, permits, and staff. On the long run, it is difficult for a Nana-sized technology startup to compete huge players in the value chain while maintaining similar prices to those offered by traditional supermarkets.

Hence, mid 2019, the management team at Nana decided to fully transform into an online marketplace offering traditional supermarkets and food centers an online channel and act as a lead generation engine. This shift in model changed the game for Nana, Instead of positioning itself as a direct competitor, Nana became a success partner and a leader in generating sales for offline players, which in turn contributed to accelerating the growth of Nana during the past year, and positioned the startup to become the first platform in Saudi Arabia to include major food market chains on one platform.

COVID-19 effects:
With the current economic circumstances taken into consideration and the spread of Coronavirus, Nana plays a major role in helping individuals to adhere to precautionary measures of self quarantine. Nana’s capacity was tripled compared to the previous month in order to meet the increasing demand which was also doubled. Using incentive programs such as Ajeer program sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, temporary secondment of employees contributed to facilitating the process of Nana’s accelerated growth in light of this crisis.

The Team Behind the Success:
Nana was founded by three founding members Sami Alhelwah, Ahmad Alsamani and Bakr Elsherif. The team was later joined by Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Nana’s co-founder and CFO. Sami is a serial tech entrepreneur with a long list of startup adventures over the course of 16 years in the ecosystem. Bakr, co-founder and CTO, is a software engineer and helped Sami in developing several products in the past. Ahmd, co-founder, specializes in hardware design and stands behind many hardware tools that enable Nana’s workflow. Finally, they all decided to focus on growing Nana in 2016 and that is when they attracted a few angel investors to fund their idea. In late 2017, the team came across Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, an energetic entrepreneur who started a last mile logistics startup, Hably, the four entrepreneurs have immediately decided to join the forces. That was when Nana acquired Hably and Abdulmajeed joined Nana as a co-founder. Abdulmajeed’s contribution to the team was instrumental in managing the logistics operations more efficiently and more importantly, in fundraising.

Investment Rounds:
Starting with their first round back in May 2016, Nana team raised a $2.1m Seed round by Angel investors, followed by a $2.2m Convertible Note round in 2017. Both rounds were to further help Nana better solidify its position in the market and to expand to multiple cities across the Kingdom. With a better understanding of where Nana stands and where its headed, Nana raised its $6.6m Series A round in 2019. The round was co-led by Impact46 and MEVP, with participation from Watar Partners, Wamda Capital, and Saudi Venture Company (SVC) with the objective to double-down on growth, expansion and improving its customer service.

“Impact46 started engaging with Nana in late 2018, around the time we were setting up shop ourselves and had underwrote $5m of Series A round in March 2019, before we even had our own license ready. We are happy to have done so, because it opened the doors for us to set up our own Growth Fund and differentiated us from our competitors. The decision to move to a marketplace model in 2019 was a gutsy call by the management and proved to be very successful when it was implemented. We had doubts, but we had faith in the founders” said Abdulaziz Al Omran, Partner at Impact46.

This past month, Nana announced its $18m Series B round to further drive its growth, along with the plans to expand its geographical footprints into different countries in the region. The round was led by STV, the largest VC in the Middle East with a $500m fund, and with participation from Impact46, Wamda Capital, MEVP, Watar Partners, and Saudi Venture Company (SVC). Except for STV, all participants of this round have been previous investors in Nana Series A round, which only signifies the energy and momentum built by the Nana team. Homegrown from the ground up, marks the start of a new breed of startups in Saudi Arabia.

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