Careem backs Egypt's Elmenus
Uber-backed Careem invests an undisclosed amount in one of the biggest players of its highly anticipated North African market, in an effort to roll out more services and expand its market share across the region.
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Egypt-based food delivery startup Elmenus raises another funding round from a major player in the region. The Uber-backed Careem has invested an undisclosed amount in the Egyptian startup in an effort to roll out its super app in one of the most populated African markets.
Elmenus offers a uniquely comprehensive platform for restaurant information and food discovery in Egypt, on the road to complete personalization of food recommendations down to a dish level. Expanding rapidly and scaling its operations the Egyptian startup connects users to 6,000 restaurants across Egypt.
As recorded in our MENA 2022 Venture Investment Report, the F&B sector made a great comeback across the region driven by Kitopi’s $415M Mega Round, and a 12% increase in number of transactions closed YoY. While online food delivery remains the most historically tested and consistently evolving segment of the market, with startups like Elmenus (Egy), Breadfast (Egy), Daily Mealz (KSA), and AlSraee3 (Iraq), the cloud kitchen tech space has taken center stage over the past year. It shows great potential, however, that startups like GrubTech, Kitch, and The Concept are able to raise sizable investments and investor traction to optimize space usage considering the critical boost it has on fully digitizing the F&B ordering process.
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The investment of undisclosed amounts in Elmenus, which serves more than one million users in one of Africa’s most populous states, is an important step for Careem’s plan to roll out a “super app” across the region, said the UAE-based company’s co-founder and CEO Mudassir Sheikha. “We’ve been very impressed with the Elmenus teams’ drive and purposeful approach to building a successful food business,” Sheikha said.
Elmenus secured last year at least $10 million in funding from several investors, including Egyptian electronic payment platform Fawry, New York-based hedge fund Luxor Capital and Egyptian property developer Marakez. It had previously raised $8M in a Series B round from Dubai-based Global Ventures and Cairo-based Algebra Ventures. While Egypt remains one Careem’s biggest markets when it comes to ride-hailing, the startup is looking at the exceptional potential of online food delivery as Shaikha concluded, “There is an enormous potential in Egypt to improve the food ordering experience and Elmenus is uniquely positioned to lead the way.”
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Source: Zawya.com