Riyadh-based food delivery service Jahez has fetched $36.5 million in a Series A round led by Saudi VC Impact46. The deal is termed as the largest-ever of its kind for a Saudi startup and one of the biggest Series A rounds of the region.
The deal involves the purchase of both primary and secondary shares. It is not evident yet how much of these funds is for Jahez and how much has gone to previous stockholders. The statement from the firm has not given specifics about which former stockholders have made an exit (partial or full) with their stake.
Jahez, which was founded in 2016 by Ghassab Al-Mandil, offers comprehensive delivery solutions (with the cooperation of freelance carriers) to its restaurant partners within more than 20 cities of the Kingdom, battling it out with other regional players such as Delivery Hero’s HungerStation, Careem Now, and several others. Its platform automates the incoming request flow within a single spot and gives last-mile delivery service too, to deliver food to its customers.
Recently, Jahez had expanded its offering to grocery stores and non-food retailers, delivering to their clients as a large number of people stay indoors due to COVID-19 and are doing shopping online.
The startup serves more than 3 million users through its network of 15,000 delivery operators. The official statement said that Jahez is on its way to surpassing $270 million in transaction value in 2020 procured from across 12,000 points of sales across the Kingdom. It has treated more than 20 million orders and has associated with brands like McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, SACO, and Whites Pharmacies.
Jahez is now also preparing to expand into cloud-kitchens, groceries and non-food eCommerce services. It will utilize the supplementary funds to additionally develop its tech, introduce new products & services, and consolidate its place in Saudi Arabia.
A team of 180 employees is dispersed across Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and 19 other cities in Saudi, “The success story of Jahez carries with it national pride, a Saudi company launched by Saudi management and staff with more than 90 percent of Saudization,” stated the statement.
“Our starting point when creating Jahez was to give restaurants the tools they need to remain competitive in a digital world. In the current climate in particular, we help restaurants, supermarkets, pharmacies, and other retailers gain access to a new digital channel and generate revenue by selling through Jahez.” – Ghassab Al-Mandil Co-founder and CEO – Jahez
“We want to continue to bring convenience, choice and reliability to our users as we fulfil our mission”. “With this funding round, we will further invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, expanding in new verticals and developing our in-house technology, while keeping excellent customer experience at the core,” Mr. Al-Mandil appended.
Abdulaziz Al Omran from Impact46, responded, “Jahez’s management team has an entrepreneurial spirit that makes miracles happen, they grew from a small departmental team to where they are today in less than three years. Seeing how the team has stepped up during the lockdown to help many restaurants and grocery stores offer delivery services in a matter of hours has only reinforced our conviction that this start-up is something special.”
