Saudi Arabia’s Foodics raises $170m in Series C round in MENA

Foodics, the cloud-based technology and payments platform for restaurants in the MENA region has successfully raised $170m in a Series C funding.

The round was led by Prosus, one of the global technology investors, 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 and Endeavor Catalyst.

Foodics is a restaurant management and fintech ecosystem that empowers food & beverage (F&B) owners and merchants to run their operations more efficiently, thereby fast-tracking their business growth. Formally licenced as a fintech company by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), it caters to every segment of the F&B sector from traditional dine-in restaurants, cafés, quick service restaurants, bakeries, food trucks through to cloud kitchens, a statement said.

This latest round will support its regional and international expansion, including its M&A strategy to increase market penetration. The company will also use the proceeds to launch and scale new initiatives around fintech, micro-lending and supply chain management, alongside boosting its innovation capabilities to serve business owners better.

As part of its growth strategy, Foodics will also expand into non-food micro-retail outlets as a new segment.

Ahmad Al-Zaini, Foodics co-founder and CEO, commented: “This latest investment will enable us to accelerate the development of our end-to-end tech stack ecosystem to better support the F&B entrepreneurs and owners who make up the majority of our client community.”

Fahd Beg, chief operating officer of Prosus Food, said, “We believe restaurant-tech is an exciting opportunity within the food ecosystem with significant growth potential. Foodics has already established a strong regional presence by leveraging its product vision, technical excellence, and brand.”

Since its inception in 2014, Foodics has successfully processed over five billion orders through its platform. It also made its first acquisition last January, with the full ownership of POSRocket, the second largest restaurant cloud technology provider in MENA, with further M&A activities and international expansion moves on the cards, including countries in the APAC region.